Interview with Richard Zeni

Interviewee: Mr. Richard Zeni
Interviewer: Reagan Wilkins (student)
Location: Public Library, San Marcos, Texas
Wilkins: Today is Saturday, October 22,2005, and we are interviewing Richard Zeni
(Mr. Zeni corrects the pronunciation of his name). Mr. Zeni is eighty-one years
old, having been born on August 12,1924. My name is Reagan Wilkins, and I'll
be the interviewer. We are in the library in San Marcos, Texas. Okay, Mr. Zeni?
ZENI: Yes?
Wilkins: So, before you joined the Navy, where were you living?
ZENI: I lived in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilkins: Okay, how old were you when you decided to join?
ZENI: Well, it wasn't much of a choice, (laughter from interviewer) either that or get
drafted. I finished high school. I was eighteen in December of '42 and I went into
the Navy in February of '43.
Wilkins: Why did you decide to join the Navy specifically?
ZENI: Because my brother was in it. And then to give you a side story on it, John
Payne made a lot of movies about the Marine Corps. And in the movies, they
always showed you Marines getting run over by tanks. And that was one of the
primary reasons I joined the Navy, because I wanted a clean bed to sleep in and I
think the Navy offered you that. And also, I tried to join the V- 12, or V-5, I think
it was, the V-5 Aviation, the Program, and they had closed it that summer. And
another item that you may be interested in, the last guy to get in on that V-5
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Program was not this present Bush, President Bush, but his father, and he is two
months older than I, is the reason.
Wilkins: Wow.
ZENI: So, then, so they told me to join the Navy and apply for V-5 while I was in the
Navy.
Wilkins: Did you make it?
ZENI: No, I didn't want it after a while, and I'll explain that.
Wilkins: Oh. okay, so you joined the Navy, and you went to Basic Training, I'm
guessing.
ZENI: I went to Basic Training at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New
York, and that was a horrible experience for a simple reason: I went to 90 Church
Street and enlisted, and we sat around and they were kicking around San Diego
and all different bases. And me, as a kid who never left Brooklyn in my life, it
seemed to be far off, as I would never get home.
But we got to Sampson Training Station maybe about 4:00 in the morning,
and we would have no shades pulled down as we traveled. And we got there, and
we had no food, and we finally ate. And the first meal, the navy meal, I still recall
it. It was horrible to me. It was fried codfish. And when I was packing my bag, I
put my watch in it, and my watch broke. So it was a horrible day, (laughs) but it
wasn't after that.
Wilkins: So it got better? The training got better?
ZENI: Yeah, I enjoyed it.
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Wilkins: How long was Basic Training?
ZENI: Six weeks.
Wilkins: Six weeks?
ZENI: Yeah, I got that right here, six to eight weeks, I'll tell you in a minute. (Noise
of shuffling papers in the background.) Alright, I went to Basic, I got to Sampson
on March 13, 1943, and I was in Sampson Naval Training Station. It was near
Geneva, New York. Okay, I was there through May 13, 1943, then we went to
Boot Leave. 1'11 tell you how long I was there. And we came back after thirteen
days and went to shipping out station, right there on Sampson, and while I was
there, trying to pick schools I wanted. I wanted the submarine, but I was tone
deaf, so next choice was aviation. So I went to Naval Aviation Training Center in
Memphis, Tennessee on June 1, 1943 to take courses in Aviation Radioman. I
have the course picture of it, and the station (??).
Wilkins: Oh, excellent!
ZENI: I jumped out of Boot Camp, now what else ya' need (laughter)?
Wilkins: So what exactly, like, you said that you were an aviation radioman?
ZENI: That's what I went to school for.
Wilkins: That's what you went to school for. Is that what you ended up doing?
ZENI: That's what I ended up doing.
Wilkins: What, like, describe the job for me. What did you do?
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ZENI: Well, I was both and Aviation Radioman and an Aerial Gunner.
Wilkins: Oh, (laughter).
ZENI: Funny part with the (??) was in town like 30-40 seconds. That's what
they said. I had joined wanting to fly. So the job entailed Morse code sending
and receiving, Semaphore sending and receiving-and I can tell you an incident
or too-and strictly basic electronic theory is what we would call electronic, but
they called electricity then.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: And we have take off. And one test I failed, the rest of the people in the class
helped me out, and I graduated of course. The only alternative, if you failed the
course, you went to PT Boats in New Orleans, and I didn't want to go to no PT
Boats. Even though John Kennedy was on a PT Boat, but I wanted no part of
that.
So, after we finished the radio school, we went to about two weeks of radar
training, operational, how to operate the gear and stuff like that, and it was all the
fundamentals. And then, from there we went to a Naval Air Training Station
called Yellow Water, Florida. It was outside of Jacksonville, Florida. And there
we took Arid Gunner phase. That was your training for your rating to be an
Aerial Gunner, I had to go there.
When I was there I met Robert Stack, movie star. He was an instructor,
gunnery instructor. So we were doing skeet shooting-the first time we did trap
shooting, which is different than skeet shooting, where you're over the target and
the ducks-I call them ducks, came out. So when I got done, I got twenty out of
twenty-two. So he says to me, "are you a country boy?"
I says, "no, a city boy from Brooklyn," (interviewer laughter).
He says, "how come you know, you did so well, even that and the skeet
(??)?,,
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I says, "very fundamental, in football, you're a quarterback. You throw the
football, you lead the throw for the receiver. So I led the throw, and that's the
way." And I made plenty of money at skeet shooting later on in my Navy career.
Wilkins: Well, that's good (laughter).
ZEM: Competing against other squadrons and what not.
Wilkins: Right, wow. So does that take you through-
ZENI: Wait, I'm not finished. Then we went to Naval Air Station, Lake City,
Florida. There you-while you were in gunnery school, they assign you to the
type of aircraft you're gonna fly in. So, I was selected to the PVs, which was the
Ventura-PV- 1 s, the early versions of the Neptune later on, which I was
associated with in the Reserves. And you had still two weeks-I think we had two
weeks in Lake City, and three-four weeks in Buford, South Carolina
Another interesting thing, if you want to know about, what happened on
Christmas of '43. We took off, and I had to go on the flight, but there was no
radio gear on the plane. So, I says, "why am I going on this flight?"
"Oh come on along anyway, we got an instructor that we're taken
orientation." So we got over what was supposed to be Jacksonville, Florida, and
we went down and nothin' but fog. So he turns over to me "it looks like you have
to take our bird." I says, "I told you earlier before we took off, no radio gear."
But I did have a direction finder. This'll always stick in my mind. I locked in
on a station in Tennessee, and I flew a beam, and then we saw a spot, a break in
the fog, so we went down, and it was nothing but swamp from the Okefenokee.
So we came out over the swamps and then we went to follow the tracks away
across Georgia. And there, low and behold, is an Army Air Force base. It had P-
39s on it. And so we rang up permission to land. We got the permission, but we
couldn't get the wheels down. And, ah the hydraulics weren't working. And I
tried to do it manually, and I couldn't. I was only a small, skinny kid about
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5'3/2', 1 12 lbs soaking wet. And we went in wheels up and the pilots comment
was "of all places to screw up, I gotta screw up on a Army Air Force Base." They
were out looking for us though. It was Christmas Day.
So then we got done with that phase of it and we went to Buford, South
Carolina, where we worked with the aircraft. And, I caught pneumonia there, but
it wasn't too bad. But, it was hot in the morning, and cold in the night, great
change in temperature. Nothing of-yes, I was going to say that nothing
happened, but yes, something did happen. What we did was, while I was there, I
received my aircrew wings. But, uh, when we were assigned stations, they
picked us class. Everybody from A-L went to Afiica, Port Lioli. And L-Y went
to the Pacific. So there I am sitting there, I said ''what happens to the Zs?'
They said, "you're going to Floyd Bennett Field, New York." Imagine that,
Floyd Bennett Field, New York. I says "Great!"
I took a train, went up to Fort Bennett. I got there, and I was this young,
stupid kid and what happened with the war. So I was looking out at the hangar
and the Electronics Officer comes over to me and says "where do you live I see
Brooklyn, New York here."
"Well, come on." We walk to the corner of the hangar and I pointed to him
and I said, "you see that pier sticking out on Jamaica Bay7'-you could see it from
the base. I says, "I live two miles down the road that way."
Next thing I new I was on a plane for Quonset Point, Rhode Island. He says
"you'll be thinking more of liberty than working." So they sent me to there, that
wasn't far enough. The took me up to New Brunswick, Maine, to the Naval Air
Station.
They didn't have a place for, so they sent me down to Naval Air Station,
Squantom, Massachusetts. But they stuck me in a maintenance outfit and I was
mad, because that took away my flight pay and what have you. So what
happened was, I said "I want a transfer."
Personnel Officer says, "you're not even rated, so what are you making all
this noise about?" says "give me the test." I took the test. I passed it. So I was
an Aviation Radioman Third Class, at that point.
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Then I got on the baseball team. And that was a great time. I was playing
other military bases. It was a great time, I forgot all about the transfer. And what
happened was-this was in February or March, June-my Chief Petty Officer that
was in charge of the Radiomen said "you're transfer came through."
I says, "what do you mean, my transfer."
He said, "you put one in." He had come back fiom the Pacific, and he took a
line that I was too young to go out there. He says, "I don't want you goin' there.
I got three places they want you." One was Port Lioli, and I was corresponding
with my friends that went to Port Lioli. The lived in tents and I wanted no parts
of that. So he said the second one was USS Nevada. I woulda liked that, but he
says, "you're not going there." And I researched that later, and I was wondering
who took my place. And I found out, they were at the D-Day at Normandy. But
they didn't use the Radiomen. And there's a phase I can show you in the book
where they took these pilots, trained them in SpitEiu-es. And that's what they flew
over-that's something that's not well known-they flew over Normandy in these
Spitfires. "And the third place is down in Key West, they need a baseball player,
and that's where you're going.''
I went fiom Hedron-9 with the Headquarter's Squadron to Hedron- 12 in Key
West, Florida. I sure wasn't content, but he said there may be a chance I could go
back to flying status. And it came true, because I was there a month and I was
transferred to VS-62, which is Gunnery Squadron, back on flying status, as an
Aviation Radioman. And my personnel officer at the Hedron- 12 was Walter P.
Chrysler, Jr. and he got thrown out of the Navy.
Wilkins: Really?
ZENI: Yeah, he was gay, so they got rid of him. So I had a great time. And what
we're doing, I'll have to go through the book and show you. I got a list of all the
people who was in the Squadron. Okay. I got the history of it, if you want to
look at it. And there it tells exactly--all the jobs we'd do. Well we, primarily we
were running shipping lanes. And what we'd do is we'd challenge a ship and
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they'd have to hoist an identification flag with the code of the day. The flag
reading was essential to learn in Memphis, I forgot to tell you that.
And, uh, so we had a great time. We operated out of Key West. And we
picked up a lot of the young boys going to Europe. And we had bases, outlying
bases in Pinar del Rio, where I told you in Guantanamo. And then we had another
base in the Caibraien, which I have pictures of here. It was an area off Cuba
(papers being shuffled). We lived off this-see this boat off here, with the planes
anchored it it. There's another shot of it with the planes anchored. And what we
do is pick up anti-submarine patrol and convoy(??). And we had a base called-oh,
I can't think of the name of it right now-it was halfway between Caibraien,
or Cayo Francis where we were. And can't think of the name of it, but it was
between there and Guantanamo. And they had a houseboat there. At which you
would fly in, moor your plane, and then you'd stay over night and then flew back.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: And there is a side bit with that. I went to town that day, to eat. The cook that
was on the houseboat asked me "were'd you go?'And I told him. And I had
accidentally wandered into a leper's colony (laughter). The next month I was
sittin' there shakin', I didn't know if I'd contacted it. Course, I'll never forget the
name of the restaurant or bar: it was El Gato Negro, or "the Black Cat." That was
a good experience. The whole thing was a good experience.
And another experience I had down there was when Ensign Reeves-Eaves
not Reeves. When we got back to Key West, fiom that flight, the Skipper was up
there meeting me. He says to me, he says, "how many groups did you have in
that message you sent?" We were screening a group of convoy ships to make a
turn. I told him the amount.
I said "I got one better, I got the not that Lieutenant Eaves wrote out in my
pocket," and I gave it to him. And he counted them. I didn't know anything
about it, but what he told me. And they said they got one less group that should
have been in the message. It wasn't correct. And it was Eaves' screw up.
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And so he says, "okay, you can go, fine. It wasn't your fault." And it would
look like they wouldn't blame me that I didn't transmit it. So-this was Morse
code-so, I went down to the stairways and Eaves says to me, he says "we almost
got in trouble."
And I said "no, you almost got in trouble" (laughter). But he was a good guy.
So another episode in my life when I was in Key West was, when I made
Second Class, my buddy . . . Chapman-I couldn't think of his name for a minute.
He says "lets go to shore."
And I says, "what for?'
"Cause we made Second Class, have a good time."
I said "I don't have the liberty."
"Ahh, I have four liberty cards for each section." I said okay. We went, we
ate and we came back.
The marine at the gate says "lets see your pass," so I hand him one of the
passes, the correct one for that day. He says, "we don't want your pass, we want
your ID card." Someone said there were too many sailors in town that night. I
left my ID card.
So, the next morning the Skippers calls u p t h e Skipper of the Base-we
weren't attached to the base, but he wants punishment. So he says to me, "I hope
you liked it, because I'm given' you thirty days, that you can't leave the base."
It's the lowest form of4aptain's mad. And he gave me thirty days I couldn't
leave the base, no liberty. And I said alright. Then he turns around to Chapman
and I he says to me, "how would you like-the Coast Guard is having a problem
up in Dinner ICey.' How would you like to go up there and help them out?" You
know, they were doing the same patrol duties we were doing.
I says, "great." I says, "I'm restricted to the base here, I might as well go up
there and be something different anyway." So Dinner Key was a nice place. It
had-what I loved-it had the old type flying boats that belonged to Pan Am.
They were still there like in a museum. When I got there, guess-low and behold,
Ensign Eaves was the guy in charge.
Dinner Key is now known as Coral Gables, Florida, per Mr. Zeni.
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He says, "I hear you got in trouble, you're in trouble in Key West."
I says, "yeah," and I told him about being restricted.
"I don't know anything about it"
It happens that part of it was that they were filming the picture-I don't know
if you saw it-They Were Expendable with John Wayne, Robert Montgomery. It
was the story of the PT Boats. John Wayne, all those old characters you've seen
in the John Wayne movies. And besides flying the patrols, we went out towards
t h m h , what's the name-the islands right over by Miami, I can't think of the
P. name right now.' You can probably look on a map and see what I'm talking
about. And at nighttime, or during the day when we weren't flying, we had to fly.
If you look at the picture, you'll see those OS2U Kingfishers, spy planes. They
were our planes with meatballs.' And we were the dive-bombers, bombing the
OS2Us, I mean the PT Boats. I got that film (laughs) on DVD. Its on DVD.
Okay, I almost screwed up again that night-one night I went to shore, to
Miami and I had a curfew-I don't know if you have to put all this in there or not,
but its just interesting reading-
Wilkins: Oh yeah, its all interesting.
ZENI: So, I had a curfew, and you had to be back on the base at 12:00, and I was in
Miami. So I got done and this Air Force Officer and his wife said "you're in
trouble, there's a curfew." And I didn't know anything about it. So he says--
there was an old store and had a coat on-and they staid in front of it, and he says,
"now you stay behind me 'ti1 the bus come." So they hid me till the bus comes.
So, it was a good deal. But I helped somebody out, later on, when I was in the
Reserves in Rosy ~oads" where I did the same thing for a-when I was a Chief
Petty Officer, I did the same thing for the Guadalcanal Carrier was in base, and
Mr. Zeni later stated the islands referenced here were the Bahamas.
' Meatballs were a large red circle covering the star normally on the tail of the planes, w
Mr. Zeni.
Nickname for NAS Roosevelt Roads, per Mr. Zeni.
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one guy was drunk, but they had to be on deck, so I pulled him into my room for
the rest of-for all night. And so, I paid it back.
Okay, so, Chapman heard about it, and he wanted to come, and Skipper says,
"we asked you and you didn't want to go." So I had a great time. It was thirty
days I was up there, and I had all the liberty no problem.
Wilkins: (Laughter) just completely made up for the-
ZENI: Now he was doin' me a favor, the Skipper. So we stayed there till-I got it in
here (flipping pages in book) until the end of the war. This is the pictures of the
surrender of Germany, and that's me. This guy's gone, this guy's gone, this guy's
gone. They're all gone. And (more flipping) I got to tell you about
baseball.. .what was I saying, I lost my train of thought, play that back a little bit.
Wilkins: Um, okay (tape stops and restarts) okay.
ZENI: Okay, that Dinner experience proved help for me later on in another way. I
was flying on a patrol-We had an Ensign Curley, who was supposed to be the
son of the Mayor Curley who died right after the war. He crashed in Squantom,
Mass, believe it or not. And he died with the crash, in the reserves he was. What
had happened was, I was flying with him and we were taking, doing the normal
routine, reading the flags. And he says, "Zeni," everybody called me Zeni there.
He says, "Zeni," he says "you know something, I don't know where we are, I
don't know where to put it on the chart." He was a screw-up since the day he got
in. The first day he landed at Key West, he bounced the seaplane, and the Skipper
of the base wanted to know who it was. He was an oddball. Three people came
in; they were oddballs. And don't understand why they came to our squadron.
But, so it happened that it was in that area we flying patrols for the Coast Guard,
and I told you those islands off of Miami.
I says, "you're going the wrong way." I says "your going towards"-there's a
big gambling thing that they got up there, I can't think of the name of it.
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Everybody goes there to vacation. Well, you look it up on a map and you'll see. I
tell him "you're going there." I says, "I'll prove it to you." So I got the direction
finder, did a triangulation and showed him he was wrong. So we flew the beam
back to Miami and down to Key West. But he was a good guy, he told the
Skipper about it. So, I mean, I got complimented on it. But he was a screwball
(interviewer laughter).
The other guy, Lovenkites, who came with him when they were flying off
Cuba, and there're big thunderheads, and I says "you're not going through there
are you?"
He says, "yeah." We got blown off course, and I had to send a message. In
the messagehe says, "tell 'em we got some.. .eh.. .engine problems," for why
we're off course, its all because he screwed up.
So then I says, "well, they'll wanna know what kind of engine problems we
got."
So then he says to me, "don't tell 'em anything. Like you never heard it."
I said, "yes, but wait 'ti1 we send in the landing report, then they're gonna ask
you again." Sure enough. So those two guys, I don't know where they came
from, but they were screwballs (laughter). So that's it, now let me think.
Okay, so we finally, the war ended-in Europe, not in the Pacific. And we
got-the squadron was disbanded. Planes went to the Graveyard in Clinton,
Oklahoma, and we went up to Norfolk, Virginia. And from there I went to Pier
92--no leave (laughter) we went there for reassignment. The funny thing out of
it-this is strictly-there is the "brown shoe Navy"- an expression-is air corps.
"Black shoe Navy" is the regular ship bourn Navy. So I went to a black shoe
outfit, out there on Pier 92. And they had nothing for me to do, related to
aviation. So they put me on prisoner duty. That's horrible. Here I am looking
out at-I can't go home--I lived in Brooklyn-I couldn't see it, but I knew where
it was.
So we finally got the orders to go back to the Naval Air Training Center in
Memphis, reschooling. Everybody, even people from the Pacific, they all
converged on-that was just before the war ended in July of '45. Funny part, on
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the way back, another incident happened. We were driving, the Chief I was
with-I was Second Class, and he was Chief-he pulled some strings, and he got
us able to use the car and drive down. So the day we left, was the day the B-25
crashed into the Empire State Building.
Wilkins: Oh, wow.
ZEN1 Yeah, I don't know if you remember that, a B-25 crashed into the Empire
State Building.
So, we had a good time, we went and drove down. And another incident, what
happened was, we got to the base-we got our orders sealed, they were in an
envelope sealed with wax. He opened up the wax. He said, "did you guys open
these orders?"
I says , "no, why would I open them?'
He says, "you know why, you got no time of arrival. You coulda swung home
and stayed the war out." (interviewer laughter). He was wondering how we got
orders like that, so he called New York to verify-Pier 92, and they said okay. So
I stayed there until the war ended August-it was August 8 when the dropped the
bomb at Hiroshima And we - (??) happy about it, maybe the possibility that
the war was over. So finally the war was over. So they asked everybody-we
were going to school-but they asked pick your base, which you wanted to go to.
So my kid brother was in the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. So I picked
Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi.
This you don't have to print, but I'm just telling you just for laughs, we got
there and we had a lot of people came in from the Pacific, and they didn't want
to-they gave a hard time to the instructors who were in Memphis, because they
didn't go nowhere, they spent the whole war there, and they were giving them all
a hard time, these guys that came in from the Pacific.
So we got there, they took over the bus, and we got to Corpus Christi. But
meanwhile, we went to a Corpus resort to see what it was like. We got there, and
the sent us out to a barge way out on the bay, and we had the lights on and the
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shore patrol-not the shore patrol, the boat's inspecor (??) lights on,
wouldn't put them lights on. And the Duty Officer says, "leave 'em alone, we'll
take care of them tomorrow." So we're having a good time there. And I didn't
know what was happening, these guys were a little more older than I was, and
they're trying to shoot a Navy(??)
-I forgot to tell you, when I was in the Squantom, bad field experience. We
shared the base at Squantom, the Naval Air Station. I was on the baseball team,
and I caught a bad a taste about China-they called them China sailors, before the
war. They were horrible people. They were drunks. This guy come over, and
they assigned me a locker+clears throat) you may have to tape this over, with
my voice-and they assigned me a locker, and that's supposed to be mine (??).
And he says to me "you ain't got that locker, you got another locker."
I says "why?"
He says, "that was my locker." He says, "'cause that's my liquor locker."
But he got his-what happened--one day he was-he got the FOU. They got
TBMs on the squadron base. And SBDs.
Wilkins: What were those?
ZENI: Those were.. .uh Torpedo Bombers, SBDs were Scouting Bombers, and we
shared the base with the British Navy. I got papers you can read about, and, ah
the British Navy. They were powedul aircraft carriers. Ooohh, talking about
that, that's the greatest experience there, but let me tell you about this guy. He
made the plane go down nose-first, slipped and crashed onto the hanger floor.
And he wasn't on the base anymore.
But, uh, that's when I was a kid, and the greatest experience to me. A carrier
came into the harbor, and they flew the planes. They landed a squadron. And to
me, that was great. The precision they brought the planes in, and that was the first
experience I saw. And to me that was the greatest experience of the day. I was in
awe watching these people. I thought, I gotta be part of that, you know. It really
was, felt great, and that's it. Now how'd I get on that subject?
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Wilkins: You mentioned aircraft carriers, because you were taking about the China
navymen.
ZENI: Oh, sorry yeah. All right, now we'll go to how I came into the squadron. So I
went down to Corpus Christ to see my kid brother. That's were I met my wife
and we got married.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: Yeah. And a funny thing about my kid brother, I hadn't seen him for two
years, and he was in the fire department on the naval air station. So I walk in to
em', a guy, I says, "my kid brother's name is Lino," Lee they called him. They
took me up to where the bunkroom was, and I walked up, ''that's not my brother!"
I couldn't recognize him. (Laughter).
Okay, we stayed there, and-oh getting back to the story, now I know where I
lost my train of thought. Okay, we couldn't turn the lights out. I said, "we'll take
care of 'em later on." Okay, now next morning we assembled in the movie hall,
everybody that was aboard that-
He says, the skipper of the base, I forgot what we called him(??), "by tonight,
none of you people are gonna be on this base. I don't want you." And of course,
it was a hard time. And again, luck always falls in a line with me that everyone
was shippin' all over the country, and I fell-I went to Rodd Field, which was
down the road, naval air station. And, I was the only guy that stayed in Texas,
believe it or not. The rest of em' were shipped to the four comers of the world.
They went to the Pacific, and all other sifter(??). And draft that was on in the
personnel, they filled 'em with them. That's another one, but I stayed there 'ti1 I
got discharged. Okay, I got my orders and I got discharged.
Wilkins: Um, do mind if I ask you a couple questions about what it was like in um-
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: No
Wilkins: But we're gonna go back. When you were in Key West, and in Cuba, um,
what was it like? Like what was the climate like? Was it-
ZENI: Nice, hot.
Wilkins: Nice and hot?
ZENI: Nice, no it was nice, but very humid though.
Wilkins: Right.
ZENI: Cuba was a nice place. I enjoyed my time I spent in Cuba.
Wilkiis: Did you have any-were there any major storms, like were there any
hurricanes?
ZENI: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. In 1944, that's another incident. A pilot
on the base, his name was Collins. He was from Brooklyn. He says, called me
over, "Zeni," he says. "We going to Floyd Bennett Field, you and I."
Wilkins: Great.
ZEN: I ran over, got my gear, throw it in the back of the aircraft. The Chief comes
over and asks me, he says, "what are you doing?'
I said, "I'm going with Ensign Collins."
He said, "no you're not." He says, "the Skipper has other plans for you I
was up in Skipper's office," he says. "You're going to take a flight of leave-going
on a leave plane with flights going to Banana River." Aaaooooh. Which is,
you know where Banana River is?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: No.
ZENI: Where they shoot the shells off-
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Cape Kennedy, that's down there near Banana River. So, I said, "okay."
So Collins said, "what are you gonna do with your gear?'
I says, "take it, I ain't gonna need it." 'Cause I wore my blues, you know
what I mean, the whole dress uniform. I ain't gonna be going anyplace. So we
got in the plane, and we're over Miami, and the winds blowin' and howlin'. They
say the hurricanes coming. And, what happened was, I look around and see that
number twelve. I said "that was Mike Crawford!" He doesn't know where he
was. So I flew with three Marine pilots, I think they were. But they were PV
pilots. They weren't versed in OSS.' That's why they wanted me to go. So we
got there, and that was an experience, I tell ya'. I hurt me a (??). So, he
joined up with us and we landed at Banana River. So they had no mooring, so
that we get people coming up on the apron. So we had to moor out at the buoys in
the bay. So, what happened was, I was out to go down on a float, I had to grab
the buoy.
And what happened was, I heard this splash. I says, "What'd you do?' He
dropped the depth charge. And, I'm sitting there like that holding my head. And
I said, "well, I've got it." But it was set for, I think it was set to go off at a deeper
depth than we were, and that's what saved us from being blown up.
Wilkins: Yeah, (laughter.)
ZENI: I'll never forget that. And so, out of nowhere, my active ended. I stayed in
Corpus until I got discharged. And my active duty was great. I had no problem.
I played baseball. I played with a lot of big-leaguers. And, I wanted to be a big-
- - ' OS2Us, per Mr. Zeni.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
leaguer, but I was too small, as it ended up. When I was in high school, and I was
playing baseball for Boy's High in Brooklyn. And Coach Harry Kane, who
coached Lou Gehrig, he had the scouts from St. Louis Cardinals come in. And
the guy said, "he's a good ballplayer," he said. "But you're too small." That's
when they introduced short stops that were six feet, like they are today. And
Maw Marion was the guy they brought on because he was six foot. That was
institutional.
So, I says to him, "what about Phil Rizzutto? He was small."
And the answer he gave me was, "politics." That's why I never became a big
league ballplayer.
Wilkins: Oh, man.
ZENI: But later on, they kept they guys at five feet six. So, while I was sitting at
home, I was working. I had a horrible job. It was horrible in '45, there weren't
that many jobs around. No, '46, not '45. Eisenhower was in, no Truman was in.
There was no jobs. I had to take a job, a horrible job, making ceramics, so it was
horrible. So, I gotta get some extra income, so I joined the Naval Air Reserve.
And, my wife didn't want me to go active. I like flying, going back into that. So,
I worked with some VS outfits, we were flying torpedo bombers. And it was
great. Some places I was two weeks, I used to go flying to different parts of the
country.
Then I went to work for a place, I got pictures of. I was in the early Space
Program.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: The Discovery Missile, the Vanguard missiles, which was a very disaster the
Navy was involved with. Boy I remember the picture taken. I worked on the
gyroscopes, and the platforms, that would run it. I tested all the gyroscopes, and
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
it was good experience. But what it entailed, I had to go on field trips. And, I had
to drop out of the Reserves. So, I dropped out, I didn't do much until I got-
But then, when it quieted down I went back into the Reserves. So I was First
Class, I made First Class in there, the Reserves. They didn't want to give me it,
because I was out to long. So there was a program they had at that time, the
Navy, where-it was a double-edged sword. It was, if you could take the courses
and pass the test, I would get Chief Petty Officer, E-7. Okay, but they gave me-of
course, with my experience working with the Space Program and missiles, they
gave me a different rating: AQ. It was Guided Missile Man. And, I detested that!
I did that for about four years and I hated every minute of it. There was no flying,
and the people in there I didn't like.
So finally, one day I'm walking across a hangar and I get stopped by this
Captain Law. And he says to me, "what's that stupid thing you're wearing on
your shirt sleeve?" The rating.
I tell him, "AQ."
He says, "what are doing there'?" Well, I explained the story to him. He said,
"we ain't gonna stand for that." He was a Captain. He took me over to the VP
squadron, introduced me to the Skipper. The reason he got to know me, was I
flew with him, the early part of '40s6-when I first went into the VS squadron of
Floyd Bennett Field. And I flew with him a lot. So he took me to the Ensign, it
was Captain-uh, Commander Brass, and he says, "get him to flying status. He's
a radioman. He does more good as a radioman than what he's doing." 'Cause
they really had nothing there on Floyd Bennett to do with that.
Wilkin: Right.
ZENI: Sure enough, he wrote a letter. And, I was Chief then, AQ. And I passed the
test (sound of something hitting table and mike wobbling). I took the gamble and
won. I coulda Seaman over again (laughter). So, they changed my rate to Avian
Mr. Zeni latere corrected this to the '50s.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Submarine Warfare Technician. What I did, I went with P2Vs and the patrol
squadron and I was Radioman and Jezebel operator.
And so, I had a good time, I flew all over. I had two experiences in there that
I'll never forget. Once we were flying off New Brunswick, Maine, and all of a
sudden, on the God frequency-I don't know if you know what that is.
Wilkins: No, I don't.
ZENI: It blasts like it was somebody sitting next to you. It says, "get out of the area!"
It was the battleships having gunnery practice. We had wondered into that
(laughter). The other time was when we were off of Iceland, and we lost an
engine.
Wilkins: Oh, no.
ZENI: And, I was scared. I thought we were gonna have to bail out, but we got back
to the base. And the other time, we over flew the Azores, and Rota, Spain, and
Naples, and Sigonella, Sicily-that's where all the cases were. And we were
playing games-at that point, the Cold War was at its height, and these Russian
Trawlers, fishing trawlers, really had radar gear. And we played cat and mouse
trying to catch them, (coughs) before they covered- (tape ends, turn to other
side).
Wilkins: This is the continuation of the interview with Mr. Richard Zeni on October 22,
2005 in the library of San Marcos, Texas. And once again, my name is Reagan
Wilkins, and I am the interviewer. (Mr. Zeni coughs) were talking about trawlers.
ZENI: Yeah, that's ah, Russian trawlers. And we caught a lot of them, you know,
before they-and we took pictures. But, the biggest ah thrill I got, was when we
were in Rota, Spain. We took off, and they had a decoy and the regular sub on
through Gibraltar out into the Atlantic, or going into the Mediterranean. So there
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
was a report of stuff in there. And, it was strange because, I couldn't understand
this was, because, I used to go in and get my coded message. But you could-the
Russian submarine could sit out there and listen and hear that you were gonna-then
they knew that you were gonna take off looking for them. So we finally
went off the Canary Islands, the submarines were lucky, they saw them.
It was lots of fun. I got to see Rome. I got to see a lot of good places where I
wanted to see.
Wilkins: What did you do when you caught the Russian trawlers?
ZENI: Well, we just sent a message, or a position report.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: Not a big deal, because I don't know what happened after that. I'm glad you
mentioned that because the biggest scare I got in my life. Its right across the bay
from Cadeza, Spain. That's were Columbus came to the United States-America,
not the United States. So what happened was, I'm in this ferry boat and there was
an American Submarine base right there. And, that's where the submarines were
playing cat ant mouse with the Russian subs. And when this sub, nuclear sub
came up out of the water, I didn't know what was coming up out of the water.
Scared the dickens out of me (laughter). We lost a lot of, no not a lot, a few subs
over in that area too. They never knew what happened to them, probably playing
cat and mouse game and got caught.
Wilkins: Yep.
ZENI: So another thing is, we went to Naples, we landed there. And what happens is
we landed, see this mark up here?
Wilkins: Mh-hm.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Okay, we landed. We had a tricycle, three gears, and the gear in the fiont, it
broke it, and the Skipper says, "you can't buy that kind of experience."
I said, "who needs to?'(laughter). But that's that. So the people were a little
afiaid because he couldn't maneuver that. You know, that's hard. That same
thing happened to me in Cuba, one time, but the tail wheel wouldn't lock. And
we took off fiom Havana and there's nothing but apartment buildings around the
airfield. And that scared the dickens out of me then too. I always remembered
that.
So, we had to go back, to Rota. The pilot says, "can't you talk these guys into
it?" You know, there weren't going.
So, I says, "I'm going back." I said, "If I didn't think I was safe, I wouldn't be
on it." I got 'em all back on, but I was a little leery about it too, because
something could have happened with the landing gear. 'Cause they fixed it, but
they didn't do a permanent job.
Okay, that brings me back to permanent job. Okay, that reminds me of
another incident. When I was in the Reserves until the end, I retired fiom the
reserves but went to the Ready Reserves. Trying to think of-I got it in here
somewhere. I volunteered for this Southwest Pacific, WESTPAC (sounds of
large notebook being opened and pages being flipped). And we were supposed to
fly supplies to Vietnam, so I volunteered for it. I thought it would be a good deal,
get to go see Japan.
And so, we took OR We took off fiom Floyd Bennett to Oakland to Hawaii.
Hawaii to Wake, and then to Guam. But on the way to Wake to Guam, when we
landed at Guam, we couldn't unfeather the prop. So, I said it was electrical
problem, not mechanical, but they wouldn't believe me. I had a horrible pilot.
He thought he knew everything. So, we were sitting there. I had no duties, so I
didn't care. They were working. They'd pull an engine change and check and all
that stuff, and the still couldn't get it. All they got themselves was dirty.
So, we had got us another P2, from the regular Navy. And I talked to the guy
in there, an electrician was on board. He says, "yeah, you're right." So what I did
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
was, I got a switch. It wasn't an exact switch, fiom the maintenance department
and I saudered it in, and it worked. But we flew with that switch. And I don't
know how long it stayed there, but I reported it. It was, ah, told it to Skipper.
But we flew into there, Guam and to-oh what's the name of that place? A
beautiful place in Philippines, right outside there. They closed it down now, they
had that volcano.. .(sounds as Mr. Zeni searches through his book). Oh well, I'll
email you this stuff, but I don't remember.7 There, we were behind schedule. So,
we were supposed to go to Nang. We were carrying some important pieces of
paper or whatever it was, materials. And when we landed in Hawaii, in the whole
place, we had to park waaayyy off the field so I don't know what it was. To this
day, I have no idea what it is. So we unloaded, but that's what I said, it was in the
airspace around there. When we were in Oahu(??), trying to see anyone brought
back from Vietnam. We took people from, I'm trying to think of the name of that
base. I can't think of it, I'll think of later. I got pictures. Ah, well, we took them
up to Atsugi, Japan. And, that was a nice place, I enjoyed that. I got to spend
three days in Tokyo, it was real nice. And Yokahama. What scared me is it's
trains were so crowded and packed, its high speed trains.
Wilkins: Oh, yeah.
ZENI: And I'm looking over-short as I am, I was looking over the shoulder of
everybody. I could see these Japanese kids looking at me, who's that white man?
You know, different colored skin. But we had a good time. So we flew back to
Midway, which was an experience I enjoyed. But what had happened was, I
couldn't sleep. I can never sleep on an airplane, even today when I go on a flight,
'cause I don't know what's happening. I took over all the radio watch, all the way
to Midway to back to Oahu. When I got to Oahu, the only thing I saw was the
Punch Bowl. That's where all big (??) are buried. So this guy says, "we'll
go out tonight, you coming?"
Mr. Zeni later named the island as Subic Bay
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
I says, "yeah, let me take some snooze, shut eye, I didn't sleep." They tried to
wake me up. They couldn't wake me. I woke up, I went out to Camp Perry. I
went to the nightclub and I had something to eat. But, they took off, and I paid
for the car, my part of it. But it was fun. Then we went back home.
I had a lot of good times in the Reserves, because I just got to see-its not like
the shipboard, that they just want to cruise, and have you out to sea and back.
Maybe, they got to go to port of call, maybe. But, I got to see a lot of places
around the world. So I enjoyed it. But my wife gave me a hard time. She goes-it
was a weekend-she says, "everybody's out barbecuing and you're out-" But
I felt good about it because I felt that I was doing something that-you know it
was early in the morning, I had to drive sixty miles from Long Island, where I
lived, to Floyd Bennett. But I thought it was worth it. And I was sitting up in that
cold airplane and we were looking Russian trawlers. I thought that was
contributing.
The funny part about the Reserves, my brothers were in there. They'd both
gone in there. My older brother got called up during the Korean War. I was in
there too. I was the only one in the Active Reserve. They weren't in the active,
but they were in the inactive. They told my kid brother, wait until he was called.
They never called him. My brother they called, but he got out because he a back
problem. So, but I mean, they were inactive and they got called (laughter). But
the people they had called, the found out-I shouldn't say this, about how
horrible the Reserve Program was-they weren't actually ready. And most of
'em got-when we had the Cuban crisis, they went to outlying bases near there
and all they did was go regular. They had the opportunity to go regular. But my
wife didn't want any part of that. But I'm glad I did it, you know why? Because
I got all the benefits today. I wouldn't have nothing. I wouldn't have pension, no
medical, nothing. So I enjoyed it.
So that's it, I got pictures here, I want you to look through these things and see
what you want.
Wilkins: Okay, but-
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Ah, more questions.
Wilkins: Yeah, lets see. Um, you've answered a lot of them just through talking,
(laughs) so that's really good. Um, so when did you finally retire?
ZENI: Well, you don't retire until your 60 years old, so that would be 20-40-60, it
'84. What you did is went to the Ready Reserves . . . (Mr. Zeni spends a few
minutes looking for retirement paperwork in his book) . . . oh here's pictures from
when I was on TV.
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Here's the story (loud movement as microphone is hit, continues flipping
through book).
Wilkins: What were you on television for?
ZENI: Read it, right there, this is where I got my rating in AQ, Guided Missile Man.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, so that was the NASA Missile, working for the Space Program.
ZENI: Yeah, that's what I was telling you. That shows you all things in there. I told
you about the Gyro program. There's a table testing them, a couple degrees
instrument, discovery missile, that's the whole thing. I played softball there to . . ..
(continues to look for retirement paperwork periodically pointing out pictures) . . .
here it is, this is when I retired, see. Oh, I forgot to mention this, (long pause),
Naval Reserve Retired List, see that's where I got transferred to. That was in, ah,
'69, I think it was. That's what you want.
W: Oh, okay, this is a Retired List?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Yeah, here's where I retired the first time, well I call it the first time (laughs).
But this is explaining about the Floyd Bennet Field. They wanted me to come up
and take my picture. I didn't want to go. I didn't feel right, but I could have been
in that picture. Here it goes on and tells you I was an ASW Technician.
Now when I was a kid, I used to go to Floyd Bennett. That's one thing, how I
got introduced to Naval Air. I should have had that on there.
W: Oh, okay.
ZENI: At that time, they had the longest runway in the world. When I was out there,
seeing and reading is gonna take a lot of time. Here's what I was wanted to tell.
This is what I got for that flight to Japan.
Wilkins: (Reading) the Rear Admiral uh-
ZENI: The Richard Fowler Award.
Wilkins: Richard Fowler Award. Oh, okay. You got that for-
ZENI: Read it, WESTPAC.
Wilkins: (Reading) Whereas, while serving as a member of the Navy-Marine air
Reserve Team, and maintaining your readiness to serve your country upon instant
call, and whereas you volunteered as a Transport Flight crew member in support
of the United States Naval Air Reserve's WESTPAC operations to South Viet
Nam, and whereas the record of your volunteer service to the Unites States is in
the highest tradition of the United States Navy and the Naval Air Reserve (ends
reading). Oh, okay, so then you got this for your South Vietnam.
ZENI: Yeah.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: But you didn't, they didn't give you the Vietnam Service Medal.
ZENI: No, I never got it. That's what I'm trying to do.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, I see, that's neat.
ZENI: I want to find out how to do it though. I don't want to go through
Congressman, because you know what happens with that, they won't get their
picture in the paper.
Wilkins: Yeah, that's what it takes. Um, so going back to-
ZENI: You said, where I went. That's the Reserve, and I got (more flipping through
the book) and I got the Ready Reserve at that point time. In fact, I got all, I didn't
bring it with me, but I still haven the in case of - (??) what squadrons you
want (microphone hit). They gave you the, you know, you got a piece of paper:
in case of war breaks out this-
Wilkins: Oh, okay, you'll go to here.
ZENI: This is your assignment. That was strange. This is transfer to the Retired
Reserves. That was '69. See, I went to Retired Reserves. And I retired in '84 . . .
(looks through the book some more).
Wilkins: Did you miss it, when you were finally-when all was said and done?
ZENI: No, not really. No. (??). Well, I got retired really here, and I started
going to the Commissary out here, and Randolph and all that. I used to got to the
one over there in Austin, Bergstrom. There I missed it, because I looked around
and I saw service people, how different (bang on table) they were than the civilian
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
people. How nicer they were. The atmosphere was-I felt more at home there,
than- (??).
Wilkins: Um, when you did retire, what was your rank? You were a Chief Petty
Officer?
ZENI: Chief Petty Officer. They didn't have E-8, and E-9s then. I could have been a
Warrant Officer, but I retired instead (interviewer's laughter). 'Cause my wife
was on my back, so I figured I had enough of that . . . (Here, Mr. Zeni begins
going through his personal military history book, pointing out pictures.) . . .
Wilkins: So you mentioned you went to the school for the Aerial Gunnery. Did you
ever actually use that?
ZENI: Oh, yeah, but I mean. I was an Aerial Gunner, but I never used--oh that
reminds me of another incident. What had happened was, Princeton-I think it
was Princeton Carrier that blew up during the latter part of World War 11, you can
tape this if you want. Are you taping yet?
Willcins: Yes
ZENI: Youare?
Wilkins: Yes.
ZEN: I didn't know it was taping.
Wilkins: Oh, I'm sorry.
ZENI: That's all right. When this carrier was being-it had to be towed back to the
United States. It came through the Panama Canal, and I was flying near the
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Yucatan Peninsula and the code came in to us. That's where Semaphore came in
handy. And, oh, I gotta tell you another incident beside that. And the submarine
was hauling it out to New York, the Princeton. It was a very damaged carrier.
And this guy in the submarine come out with this blinking light, from the sub
(laughter). I'll never forget that. And the S ema p h o r ~ ht,h ere was one day we
went out. This was when we were at Neuvitas. That's the name of the base I was
trying to think of: Neuvitas. And, we went out and we had to deliver messages
that a submarine was in the area. So we took off. A couple guys dropped before
me, and to no avail. This is dropped sandbags with messages inside from the
airplanes (interviewer laughter, unintelligible few words). So I went, and we're
flying, we went over the ship and I dropped it and it was out there, and they let it
go over the side. I was mad. Then on the radio I heard the ship was calling
Miami, described our airplane. We were harassing them (laughter). And, so the
pilot got irritated, aggravated and he got on the mike and he says "we're not
harassing you! We're telling you to turn because there's a sub in your area!"
(laughter). And he broke radio-silence, it was bad. But he was p. o'd at the ship
'cause they were telling it like we were harassing them-
Wilkins: Yeah, I can (laughter)-
ZENI: And he was mad about that (laugher). That's a funny one for you. The more I
go on, the more I can think of these things. (Begins flipping through book.)
Wilkins: Um, I was gonna-
ZENI: Go ahead, give your question.
Wilkins: So, you used your education benefits that you got fiom the military?
ZENI: No.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: No?
ZENI: No. Not a day. Because, I'll tell you the truth: I thought I was too stupid to
go to college.
Wilkins: Really?
ZENI: Really. And I had a great job. Why did I need college? I was making good
money in the space program. I (??). I did go one time. It was a rainy day.
I went to a university on Long Island, and I leaned over to my wife and said, lets
go home. That's the closest I came to it. But when I came down here, and I
actually retired-my wife, like I told you, she came from Corpus. And her sister
lives here in Sequin, right nearby.
I worked for Butler. I helped start that plant, down here. Sometimes you go
to Austin, you'll see it on the other side. Okay, so, they needed personnel to start
this company. They came down from Kansas City, Butler Manufacturing. And, I
was one of six guys that started there. But, I stayed on, I only worked there ten
years. They had a larger refinery plant. I got 23,000$, in stocks. That's not too
bad. But they offered to pay for the college. And that's why I went back, and I
got my regular degree in Occupational Education, and a Master's in Personal
Interdisciplinary Sciences, because they paid for them. The only thing it cost me
was for the books.
Wilkins: That's nice.
ZENI: But, my GI plan had run out by that time.
Wilkins: What are some of the- like, are there any differences that you notice in the
military service when you first joined and military service now?
ZENI: Yeah, lots.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: What are some of the main ones that you notice?
ZEN: When you went into World War 11, during the quad (??), you signed your life
away. You were in the Rocks and Shoals Navy. Old timers will call it the Rocks
and Shoals Navy. But you signed away your identity. You didn't know it, but
you didn't write to a councilman. You didn't complain. You couldn't complain
to nobody. And the Chief said, you couldn't do anything. You couldn't write
your councilman or anything. They had your body locked in. They had no recall.
And it was more disciplined. In World War 11, it was more disciplined than
people in Vietnam and Korea. As far as Korea, Harry Truman changed all that
when he pulled in the Code of Military Justice. He brought that in, he said "boys,
you can write to your Congressman." But then, you belonged to the Navy. You
had no identity. And it was a hard life, really, because Chief said jump, you
jump. And there's nothing you could do about it.
Wilkins: Wow.
ZENI: And, a stupid kid, I was. When I got out of Raters school, I said "oh boy! No
more guard duty."
And the Chief laughed at me. He says, "you don't know what you're getting
into." But generally the people were more hardened up. I found that when I was
in the Reserve, that the people in the Rocks and Shoals Navy didn't like the
people that were enlisted in the Reserves, because they didn't have to go
through-you know, the Chief in the Rocks and Shoals was king. What he said
went. But that didn't hold true for the Reserves. Whereas they could transfer or
quit. And yo-yo things like-I'm gonna turn it off for a minute and talk to
something else. (Tape stops and restarts)
Wilkins: Um, okay, so, like, now do you belong to any of the Navy organizations or
Veteran's organizations or anything like that?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: No. I never believed in the VFW or American Legion. I did join a few of
them, but I was disenchanted. But, when I was a kid, I was growing up, the
American Legion were a bunch of drunks throwing paper bags out the window on
people and getting drunk (laughter). That's what I remember. No, I don't think
they really-they probably do a good job. I didn't want any part of it.
Wilkins: I think I've got most of my questions answered, either whether-most of them
you answered. Just by talking you got most of my questions.
ZENI: Well, good, I'm glad.
Wilkins: Is there anything else that you wanted?
ZENI: No, I wanted you to glance through these things. . . (Here, Mr. Zeni begins
going through his personal military history book, pointing out pictures and
pamphlets from his naval career.) . . . (looking at information from his Rating
School) that reminds me, you had take care of, teach a class before you got out.
Wilkins: Oh, that makes sense.
ZENI: Yeah, so, I got a bunch of Marines. I also had Eddie Rickenbacker, Jr. in my
class.
Wilkins: Who? I'm sorry.
ZENI: You don't know who Eddie Rickenbacker, Jr.-Do you no Eddie
Rickenbacker? He was a World War I Army Air Corps Ace.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, yes. I have, I remember reading about him now.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Well, his son was in there. Now I lost my train--Oh I had the Marines. I says,
"oh boy, I'm gonna have it easy. You boys were the sharp shooters. You're
wearing all of those medals." And they were horrible (laughs). They couldn't hit
the side of a barn. I was so disappointed. I said, "I thought you guys-whats all
those sharp shooter medals you got?" I hated Marines, because when I was going
to Radio School in Memphis, I was walking down the street in Memphis. Beetle
Street, I think it was. I see this Marine breaking the antenna on this girl's car. I
said, "why are you doing that for?' And she was ignoring him. I got in a fist
fight over it. And the girl told the shore patrol about it. Shore patrol took the
Marine with me then (laughter).
Then, later on, there was another incident with the Marines. Oh, yeah, that's
when I was at Squantom. You better put this down on there. When I was at
Squantom, I used to be able to go to New York on my weekends, as long as I'd do
shore patrol duty on Friday nights.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: So, I used to go do shore patrol, then I'd get off shift, go down to South
Station, get on a train, and come to New York for the whole weekend. And what
happened was, it was St. Patty's day. That's an Irish thing. Bostoners are all
Irish. So, the Marines were up there and an English ship come in. so the Marines
go-I won't go there, I'm jumping ahead. I'm walking-what I did, was that
night I went to the movies, checked the movie out, walked around town. Then,
I'm talking to a cop. Quincy Mass is the place. I'm talking to the cop and this
woman says "There he is, when you want him run down there(??)"
I said, "what's she talking about?" Are you taping this?
Wilkins: Yes.
ZENI: Oh, okay (laughter). So I says, "what's she taking about?"
He says, "where were you about an hour ago?
I says, "in the movie. Check it out."
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
"That's a good thing," he said. "They'd a killed you." He said, "the Marines
and the English Navy went at it. And the Marines were swinging their belts in the
air." (laughter). He says, "you were lucky" that I didn't go there.
I don't know, the more I talk to you, the more I get thinking about all these
experiences. Another funny experience I had was: you've ever heard of Ensign
Gay? Last pilot to VT8, Torpedo Squadron Eight, they went off of Midway and
the whole Squadron got wiped out, but he won the war and watched the carriers
being sunk (??)
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Ensign Gay is his name, he just died a little while ago. Boy, I was in
Jacksonville, and Ensign Gay was gonna fly an airplane. And I got my (banging
on table, word unintelligible) approved. I'm gonna fly with a hero. I got out-it
was starting to rain, so Chief says "everybody man the planes." So I ran out and
where do I grab the rain, and I pulled the ripcord (laughter). Oh, the parachute
opened up, no flight. So the Chief says, "you're lucky. " He says, "if you were
attached to this squadron," he'd a hurt me.
Another time, was when I went out on patrol. What we had to do, we had old
time radios, and we had to change the coils for different frequencies. And what
happened was, you were supposed to pick the right coils out. So, I took off, and I
didn't have the right coils. Boy, did I b. s. my way out of that one. I had to do a
lot of work though. Instead of (tapping on table) keying Key West, I had to send
all my messages through Mobile, Alabama (laughter). We were late back to Key
West. That was the only way I could do it. I told them that we were in a dead
zone, gave them some b. s. story like that, but I screwed up.
That time it was at the Devil's Triangle. The Bahamas is what I was trying to
think of earlier. So, that Bermuda Triangle, I had three incidents in there. That's
one of them. And, to me, there is no such thing. You know how they make out of
it? They're not in the Triangle, they're just screw-ups that people, like the
torpedo bombers that took off and then found themselves-- and then they made a
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
big story about it. We're flying back fiom Bermuda. So, the guy says--I set all
the frequencies up for Jacksonville, Florida, Norfolk and Carswell, or Kennedy-
I think it was either one. So the pilot says to the other pilot, " I got vertigo,"
didn't know up or down.
So, he goes, "let me take over," and their fighting. So, the pilot says to me,
"get me Idlewild." So, I'm setting up the fieaking thing for him, and I unlocked
the thing. So, he keyed it and the other guy grabbed it. And I don't know how he
did it, and he erased all my frequencies. 'Cause I had them locked. So I had to
reset them while they were arguing up there. I could hear it through the
headphones. And finally we got it, and we landed. And he coulda gave up the
plane, he just didn't want to give up control (??).
Another thing that was great about being in the Reserves, I was a qualified
Radioman. So anybody wanted to go on a liquor run, you know to duty free
ports. I'd just call orders through the mike (laughter). And they were willing to
buy me the same liquor (speaker fades away, unintelligible). That reminds me of
another story. We landed in Bermuda one time, and we had came in from-what's
the name of that place right of Rosy Roads? Where the ( ??)
Wilkins: Oh, I don't know
ZENI: I can't think of the name of it right now. Its one of the American owned
islands. So, the Skipper was a hard nose. He says to-and low and behold(??) he
went and took all the liquor out and lined it up on the apron, and he says-he
came to one and he said "who owns this?'And the Chief didn't want to answer
up. "Oh, it don't belong to nobody?" He called one of the guys on the line and
says, "this don't to anybody, you guys can have it" (laughter). But he was very
strict, he just, they reached a limit. But, I wasn't a drinker, so I said, I had got six
bottles for somebody else. Course, I got caught with a lot of things. And it paid
off a lot, you know.
One day we took off for Bermuda and they were socked in, so we had to run
up into El Paso . . . (Mr. Zeni has a question about the taping and if this will be
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
shown to the teacher) . . . .So we went to El Paso. So what happened was, we
waited until the guards changed every eight hours, and we would get and extra
quart. (Laughing) we were allowed six bottles, and we'd get six more. But, I
didn't drink then, but the other guys did. Another time we went to Vegas, had a
good time.
That's what I'm telling you, the Reserves is a great experience. I worked
hard. One guy told me, when I made Chief Petty Officer-I like working on
airplanes. And, one day the skipper see me, he called me down. I was in my
dungarees with my Chiefs hat on. He says, "what are you doin'?"
I says, "I'm helping the guys out."
He says, "there's a lot of guys that would like to be wearing your hat. Do you
wanna give it to them?'Yeah, you wasn't supposed to do it, with being a Chief.
But, it was a good thing. I had a good experience. That's one of the things that I
remember on it.
Another time I passed-another thing, I coulda killed the guy. I was going for
Chief, way before I got it. I took the written test, and I passed everything. So I
had a flight I wanted to make. So I told the instructor of the school-I knew him
from way back-and I said, "you know I can take code, I ain't gonna take the
code test." He flunked me. And they flew me, I threw it out because I wouldn't
tell them about it. I ended up having to take the whole test again, because he
didn't want me to be Chief. There was a lot of that, you know. People that you
met that I didn't care for. But, not that they were good.
The submarine people never liked us either. 'Cause we madeif you
dropped, it wasn't a real depth charge, but if you dropped it from the plane, they'd
think you had. It would send a shock through the hull.
One time, there was a guy down there, and I'm sending a message. And I
couldn't get the frequency in right. I would always get--oh, that's one of the
reasons I didn't want to fly any more: 'cause my hearing started to go. And what
I had to do, is I'd hear dit- dit- dit- dit- dit- dit and all the dits and dots, I had to
detune it and It'd go boom- boom- boom- boom- boom, and I could make it out. I
tried failing the swimming test (??). They wouldn't let me. I got turned in,
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni

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Interviewee: Mr. Richard Zeni
Interviewer: Reagan Wilkins (student)
Location: Public Library, San Marcos, Texas
Wilkins: Today is Saturday, October 22,2005, and we are interviewing Richard Zeni
(Mr. Zeni corrects the pronunciation of his name). Mr. Zeni is eighty-one years
old, having been born on August 12,1924. My name is Reagan Wilkins, and I'll
be the interviewer. We are in the library in San Marcos, Texas. Okay, Mr. Zeni?
ZENI: Yes?
Wilkins: So, before you joined the Navy, where were you living?
ZENI: I lived in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilkins: Okay, how old were you when you decided to join?
ZENI: Well, it wasn't much of a choice, (laughter from interviewer) either that or get
drafted. I finished high school. I was eighteen in December of '42 and I went into
the Navy in February of '43.
Wilkins: Why did you decide to join the Navy specifically?
ZENI: Because my brother was in it. And then to give you a side story on it, John
Payne made a lot of movies about the Marine Corps. And in the movies, they
always showed you Marines getting run over by tanks. And that was one of the
primary reasons I joined the Navy, because I wanted a clean bed to sleep in and I
think the Navy offered you that. And also, I tried to join the V- 12, or V-5, I think
it was, the V-5 Aviation, the Program, and they had closed it that summer. And
another item that you may be interested in, the last guy to get in on that V-5
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Program was not this present Bush, President Bush, but his father, and he is two
months older than I, is the reason.
Wilkins: Wow.
ZENI: So, then, so they told me to join the Navy and apply for V-5 while I was in the
Navy.
Wilkins: Did you make it?
ZENI: No, I didn't want it after a while, and I'll explain that.
Wilkins: Oh. okay, so you joined the Navy, and you went to Basic Training, I'm
guessing.
ZENI: I went to Basic Training at Sampson Naval Training Station in upstate New
York, and that was a horrible experience for a simple reason: I went to 90 Church
Street and enlisted, and we sat around and they were kicking around San Diego
and all different bases. And me, as a kid who never left Brooklyn in my life, it
seemed to be far off, as I would never get home.
But we got to Sampson Training Station maybe about 4:00 in the morning,
and we would have no shades pulled down as we traveled. And we got there, and
we had no food, and we finally ate. And the first meal, the navy meal, I still recall
it. It was horrible to me. It was fried codfish. And when I was packing my bag, I
put my watch in it, and my watch broke. So it was a horrible day, (laughs) but it
wasn't after that.
Wilkins: So it got better? The training got better?
ZENI: Yeah, I enjoyed it.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: How long was Basic Training?
ZENI: Six weeks.
Wilkins: Six weeks?
ZENI: Yeah, I got that right here, six to eight weeks, I'll tell you in a minute. (Noise
of shuffling papers in the background.) Alright, I went to Basic, I got to Sampson
on March 13, 1943, and I was in Sampson Naval Training Station. It was near
Geneva, New York. Okay, I was there through May 13, 1943, then we went to
Boot Leave. 1'11 tell you how long I was there. And we came back after thirteen
days and went to shipping out station, right there on Sampson, and while I was
there, trying to pick schools I wanted. I wanted the submarine, but I was tone
deaf, so next choice was aviation. So I went to Naval Aviation Training Center in
Memphis, Tennessee on June 1, 1943 to take courses in Aviation Radioman. I
have the course picture of it, and the station (??).
Wilkins: Oh, excellent!
ZENI: I jumped out of Boot Camp, now what else ya' need (laughter)?
Wilkins: So what exactly, like, you said that you were an aviation radioman?
ZENI: That's what I went to school for.
Wilkins: That's what you went to school for. Is that what you ended up doing?
ZENI: That's what I ended up doing.
Wilkins: What, like, describe the job for me. What did you do?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Well, I was both and Aviation Radioman and an Aerial Gunner.
Wilkins: Oh, (laughter).
ZENI: Funny part with the (??) was in town like 30-40 seconds. That's what
they said. I had joined wanting to fly. So the job entailed Morse code sending
and receiving, Semaphore sending and receiving-and I can tell you an incident
or too-and strictly basic electronic theory is what we would call electronic, but
they called electricity then.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: And we have take off. And one test I failed, the rest of the people in the class
helped me out, and I graduated of course. The only alternative, if you failed the
course, you went to PT Boats in New Orleans, and I didn't want to go to no PT
Boats. Even though John Kennedy was on a PT Boat, but I wanted no part of
that.
So, after we finished the radio school, we went to about two weeks of radar
training, operational, how to operate the gear and stuff like that, and it was all the
fundamentals. And then, from there we went to a Naval Air Training Station
called Yellow Water, Florida. It was outside of Jacksonville, Florida. And there
we took Arid Gunner phase. That was your training for your rating to be an
Aerial Gunner, I had to go there.
When I was there I met Robert Stack, movie star. He was an instructor,
gunnery instructor. So we were doing skeet shooting-the first time we did trap
shooting, which is different than skeet shooting, where you're over the target and
the ducks-I call them ducks, came out. So when I got done, I got twenty out of
twenty-two. So he says to me, "are you a country boy?"
I says, "no, a city boy from Brooklyn," (interviewer laughter).
He says, "how come you know, you did so well, even that and the skeet
(??)?,,
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
I says, "very fundamental, in football, you're a quarterback. You throw the
football, you lead the throw for the receiver. So I led the throw, and that's the
way." And I made plenty of money at skeet shooting later on in my Navy career.
Wilkins: Well, that's good (laughter).
ZEM: Competing against other squadrons and what not.
Wilkins: Right, wow. So does that take you through-
ZENI: Wait, I'm not finished. Then we went to Naval Air Station, Lake City,
Florida. There you-while you were in gunnery school, they assign you to the
type of aircraft you're gonna fly in. So, I was selected to the PVs, which was the
Ventura-PV- 1 s, the early versions of the Neptune later on, which I was
associated with in the Reserves. And you had still two weeks-I think we had two
weeks in Lake City, and three-four weeks in Buford, South Carolina
Another interesting thing, if you want to know about, what happened on
Christmas of '43. We took off, and I had to go on the flight, but there was no
radio gear on the plane. So, I says, "why am I going on this flight?"
"Oh come on along anyway, we got an instructor that we're taken
orientation." So we got over what was supposed to be Jacksonville, Florida, and
we went down and nothin' but fog. So he turns over to me "it looks like you have
to take our bird." I says, "I told you earlier before we took off, no radio gear."
But I did have a direction finder. This'll always stick in my mind. I locked in
on a station in Tennessee, and I flew a beam, and then we saw a spot, a break in
the fog, so we went down, and it was nothing but swamp from the Okefenokee.
So we came out over the swamps and then we went to follow the tracks away
across Georgia. And there, low and behold, is an Army Air Force base. It had P-
39s on it. And so we rang up permission to land. We got the permission, but we
couldn't get the wheels down. And, ah the hydraulics weren't working. And I
tried to do it manually, and I couldn't. I was only a small, skinny kid about
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
5'3/2', 1 12 lbs soaking wet. And we went in wheels up and the pilots comment
was "of all places to screw up, I gotta screw up on a Army Air Force Base." They
were out looking for us though. It was Christmas Day.
So then we got done with that phase of it and we went to Buford, South
Carolina, where we worked with the aircraft. And, I caught pneumonia there, but
it wasn't too bad. But, it was hot in the morning, and cold in the night, great
change in temperature. Nothing of-yes, I was going to say that nothing
happened, but yes, something did happen. What we did was, while I was there, I
received my aircrew wings. But, uh, when we were assigned stations, they
picked us class. Everybody from A-L went to Afiica, Port Lioli. And L-Y went
to the Pacific. So there I am sitting there, I said ''what happens to the Zs?'
They said, "you're going to Floyd Bennett Field, New York." Imagine that,
Floyd Bennett Field, New York. I says "Great!"
I took a train, went up to Fort Bennett. I got there, and I was this young,
stupid kid and what happened with the war. So I was looking out at the hangar
and the Electronics Officer comes over to me and says "where do you live I see
Brooklyn, New York here."
"Well, come on." We walk to the corner of the hangar and I pointed to him
and I said, "you see that pier sticking out on Jamaica Bay7'-you could see it from
the base. I says, "I live two miles down the road that way."
Next thing I new I was on a plane for Quonset Point, Rhode Island. He says
"you'll be thinking more of liberty than working." So they sent me to there, that
wasn't far enough. The took me up to New Brunswick, Maine, to the Naval Air
Station.
They didn't have a place for, so they sent me down to Naval Air Station,
Squantom, Massachusetts. But they stuck me in a maintenance outfit and I was
mad, because that took away my flight pay and what have you. So what
happened was, I said "I want a transfer."
Personnel Officer says, "you're not even rated, so what are you making all
this noise about?" says "give me the test." I took the test. I passed it. So I was
an Aviation Radioman Third Class, at that point.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Then I got on the baseball team. And that was a great time. I was playing
other military bases. It was a great time, I forgot all about the transfer. And what
happened was-this was in February or March, June-my Chief Petty Officer that
was in charge of the Radiomen said "you're transfer came through."
I says, "what do you mean, my transfer."
He said, "you put one in." He had come back fiom the Pacific, and he took a
line that I was too young to go out there. He says, "I don't want you goin' there.
I got three places they want you." One was Port Lioli, and I was corresponding
with my friends that went to Port Lioli. The lived in tents and I wanted no parts
of that. So he said the second one was USS Nevada. I woulda liked that, but he
says, "you're not going there." And I researched that later, and I was wondering
who took my place. And I found out, they were at the D-Day at Normandy. But
they didn't use the Radiomen. And there's a phase I can show you in the book
where they took these pilots, trained them in SpitEiu-es. And that's what they flew
over-that's something that's not well known-they flew over Normandy in these
Spitfires. "And the third place is down in Key West, they need a baseball player,
and that's where you're going.''
I went fiom Hedron-9 with the Headquarter's Squadron to Hedron- 12 in Key
West, Florida. I sure wasn't content, but he said there may be a chance I could go
back to flying status. And it came true, because I was there a month and I was
transferred to VS-62, which is Gunnery Squadron, back on flying status, as an
Aviation Radioman. And my personnel officer at the Hedron- 12 was Walter P.
Chrysler, Jr. and he got thrown out of the Navy.
Wilkins: Really?
ZENI: Yeah, he was gay, so they got rid of him. So I had a great time. And what
we're doing, I'll have to go through the book and show you. I got a list of all the
people who was in the Squadron. Okay. I got the history of it, if you want to
look at it. And there it tells exactly--all the jobs we'd do. Well we, primarily we
were running shipping lanes. And what we'd do is we'd challenge a ship and
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
they'd have to hoist an identification flag with the code of the day. The flag
reading was essential to learn in Memphis, I forgot to tell you that.
And, uh, so we had a great time. We operated out of Key West. And we
picked up a lot of the young boys going to Europe. And we had bases, outlying
bases in Pinar del Rio, where I told you in Guantanamo. And then we had another
base in the Caibraien, which I have pictures of here. It was an area off Cuba
(papers being shuffled). We lived off this-see this boat off here, with the planes
anchored it it. There's another shot of it with the planes anchored. And what we
do is pick up anti-submarine patrol and convoy(??). And we had a base called-oh,
I can't think of the name of it right now-it was halfway between Caibraien,
or Cayo Francis where we were. And can't think of the name of it, but it was
between there and Guantanamo. And they had a houseboat there. At which you
would fly in, moor your plane, and then you'd stay over night and then flew back.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: And there is a side bit with that. I went to town that day, to eat. The cook that
was on the houseboat asked me "were'd you go?'And I told him. And I had
accidentally wandered into a leper's colony (laughter). The next month I was
sittin' there shakin', I didn't know if I'd contacted it. Course, I'll never forget the
name of the restaurant or bar: it was El Gato Negro, or "the Black Cat." That was
a good experience. The whole thing was a good experience.
And another experience I had down there was when Ensign Reeves-Eaves
not Reeves. When we got back to Key West, fiom that flight, the Skipper was up
there meeting me. He says to me, he says, "how many groups did you have in
that message you sent?" We were screening a group of convoy ships to make a
turn. I told him the amount.
I said "I got one better, I got the not that Lieutenant Eaves wrote out in my
pocket," and I gave it to him. And he counted them. I didn't know anything
about it, but what he told me. And they said they got one less group that should
have been in the message. It wasn't correct. And it was Eaves' screw up.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
And so he says, "okay, you can go, fine. It wasn't your fault." And it would
look like they wouldn't blame me that I didn't transmit it. So-this was Morse
code-so, I went down to the stairways and Eaves says to me, he says "we almost
got in trouble."
And I said "no, you almost got in trouble" (laughter). But he was a good guy.
So another episode in my life when I was in Key West was, when I made
Second Class, my buddy . . . Chapman-I couldn't think of his name for a minute.
He says "lets go to shore."
And I says, "what for?'
"Cause we made Second Class, have a good time."
I said "I don't have the liberty."
"Ahh, I have four liberty cards for each section." I said okay. We went, we
ate and we came back.
The marine at the gate says "lets see your pass," so I hand him one of the
passes, the correct one for that day. He says, "we don't want your pass, we want
your ID card." Someone said there were too many sailors in town that night. I
left my ID card.
So, the next morning the Skippers calls u p t h e Skipper of the Base-we
weren't attached to the base, but he wants punishment. So he says to me, "I hope
you liked it, because I'm given' you thirty days, that you can't leave the base."
It's the lowest form of4aptain's mad. And he gave me thirty days I couldn't
leave the base, no liberty. And I said alright. Then he turns around to Chapman
and I he says to me, "how would you like-the Coast Guard is having a problem
up in Dinner ICey.' How would you like to go up there and help them out?" You
know, they were doing the same patrol duties we were doing.
I says, "great." I says, "I'm restricted to the base here, I might as well go up
there and be something different anyway." So Dinner Key was a nice place. It
had-what I loved-it had the old type flying boats that belonged to Pan Am.
They were still there like in a museum. When I got there, guess-low and behold,
Ensign Eaves was the guy in charge.
Dinner Key is now known as Coral Gables, Florida, per Mr. Zeni.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
He says, "I hear you got in trouble, you're in trouble in Key West."
I says, "yeah," and I told him about being restricted.
"I don't know anything about it"
It happens that part of it was that they were filming the picture-I don't know
if you saw it-They Were Expendable with John Wayne, Robert Montgomery. It
was the story of the PT Boats. John Wayne, all those old characters you've seen
in the John Wayne movies. And besides flying the patrols, we went out towards
t h m h , what's the name-the islands right over by Miami, I can't think of the
P. name right now.' You can probably look on a map and see what I'm talking
about. And at nighttime, or during the day when we weren't flying, we had to fly.
If you look at the picture, you'll see those OS2U Kingfishers, spy planes. They
were our planes with meatballs.' And we were the dive-bombers, bombing the
OS2Us, I mean the PT Boats. I got that film (laughs) on DVD. Its on DVD.
Okay, I almost screwed up again that night-one night I went to shore, to
Miami and I had a curfew-I don't know if you have to put all this in there or not,
but its just interesting reading-
Wilkins: Oh yeah, its all interesting.
ZENI: So, I had a curfew, and you had to be back on the base at 12:00, and I was in
Miami. So I got done and this Air Force Officer and his wife said "you're in
trouble, there's a curfew." And I didn't know anything about it. So he says--
there was an old store and had a coat on-and they staid in front of it, and he says,
"now you stay behind me 'ti1 the bus come." So they hid me till the bus comes.
So, it was a good deal. But I helped somebody out, later on, when I was in the
Reserves in Rosy ~oads" where I did the same thing for a-when I was a Chief
Petty Officer, I did the same thing for the Guadalcanal Carrier was in base, and
Mr. Zeni later stated the islands referenced here were the Bahamas.
' Meatballs were a large red circle covering the star normally on the tail of the planes, w
Mr. Zeni.
Nickname for NAS Roosevelt Roads, per Mr. Zeni.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
one guy was drunk, but they had to be on deck, so I pulled him into my room for
the rest of-for all night. And so, I paid it back.
Okay, so, Chapman heard about it, and he wanted to come, and Skipper says,
"we asked you and you didn't want to go." So I had a great time. It was thirty
days I was up there, and I had all the liberty no problem.
Wilkins: (Laughter) just completely made up for the-
ZENI: Now he was doin' me a favor, the Skipper. So we stayed there till-I got it in
here (flipping pages in book) until the end of the war. This is the pictures of the
surrender of Germany, and that's me. This guy's gone, this guy's gone, this guy's
gone. They're all gone. And (more flipping) I got to tell you about
baseball.. .what was I saying, I lost my train of thought, play that back a little bit.
Wilkins: Um, okay (tape stops and restarts) okay.
ZENI: Okay, that Dinner experience proved help for me later on in another way. I
was flying on a patrol-We had an Ensign Curley, who was supposed to be the
son of the Mayor Curley who died right after the war. He crashed in Squantom,
Mass, believe it or not. And he died with the crash, in the reserves he was. What
had happened was, I was flying with him and we were taking, doing the normal
routine, reading the flags. And he says, "Zeni," everybody called me Zeni there.
He says, "Zeni," he says "you know something, I don't know where we are, I
don't know where to put it on the chart." He was a screw-up since the day he got
in. The first day he landed at Key West, he bounced the seaplane, and the Skipper
of the base wanted to know who it was. He was an oddball. Three people came
in; they were oddballs. And don't understand why they came to our squadron.
But, so it happened that it was in that area we flying patrols for the Coast Guard,
and I told you those islands off of Miami.
I says, "you're going the wrong way." I says "your going towards"-there's a
big gambling thing that they got up there, I can't think of the name of it.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Everybody goes there to vacation. Well, you look it up on a map and you'll see. I
tell him "you're going there." I says, "I'll prove it to you." So I got the direction
finder, did a triangulation and showed him he was wrong. So we flew the beam
back to Miami and down to Key West. But he was a good guy, he told the
Skipper about it. So, I mean, I got complimented on it. But he was a screwball
(interviewer laughter).
The other guy, Lovenkites, who came with him when they were flying off
Cuba, and there're big thunderheads, and I says "you're not going through there
are you?"
He says, "yeah." We got blown off course, and I had to send a message. In
the messagehe says, "tell 'em we got some.. .eh.. .engine problems," for why
we're off course, its all because he screwed up.
So then I says, "well, they'll wanna know what kind of engine problems we
got."
So then he says to me, "don't tell 'em anything. Like you never heard it."
I said, "yes, but wait 'ti1 we send in the landing report, then they're gonna ask
you again." Sure enough. So those two guys, I don't know where they came
from, but they were screwballs (laughter). So that's it, now let me think.
Okay, so we finally, the war ended-in Europe, not in the Pacific. And we
got-the squadron was disbanded. Planes went to the Graveyard in Clinton,
Oklahoma, and we went up to Norfolk, Virginia. And from there I went to Pier
92--no leave (laughter) we went there for reassignment. The funny thing out of
it-this is strictly-there is the "brown shoe Navy"- an expression-is air corps.
"Black shoe Navy" is the regular ship bourn Navy. So I went to a black shoe
outfit, out there on Pier 92. And they had nothing for me to do, related to
aviation. So they put me on prisoner duty. That's horrible. Here I am looking
out at-I can't go home--I lived in Brooklyn-I couldn't see it, but I knew where
it was.
So we finally got the orders to go back to the Naval Air Training Center in
Memphis, reschooling. Everybody, even people from the Pacific, they all
converged on-that was just before the war ended in July of '45. Funny part, on
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
the way back, another incident happened. We were driving, the Chief I was
with-I was Second Class, and he was Chief-he pulled some strings, and he got
us able to use the car and drive down. So the day we left, was the day the B-25
crashed into the Empire State Building.
Wilkins: Oh, wow.
ZEN1 Yeah, I don't know if you remember that, a B-25 crashed into the Empire
State Building.
So, we had a good time, we went and drove down. And another incident, what
happened was, we got to the base-we got our orders sealed, they were in an
envelope sealed with wax. He opened up the wax. He said, "did you guys open
these orders?"
I says , "no, why would I open them?'
He says, "you know why, you got no time of arrival. You coulda swung home
and stayed the war out." (interviewer laughter). He was wondering how we got
orders like that, so he called New York to verify-Pier 92, and they said okay. So
I stayed there until the war ended August-it was August 8 when the dropped the
bomb at Hiroshima And we - (??) happy about it, maybe the possibility that
the war was over. So finally the war was over. So they asked everybody-we
were going to school-but they asked pick your base, which you wanted to go to.
So my kid brother was in the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi. So I picked
Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi.
This you don't have to print, but I'm just telling you just for laughs, we got
there and we had a lot of people came in from the Pacific, and they didn't want
to-they gave a hard time to the instructors who were in Memphis, because they
didn't go nowhere, they spent the whole war there, and they were giving them all
a hard time, these guys that came in from the Pacific.
So we got there, they took over the bus, and we got to Corpus Christi. But
meanwhile, we went to a Corpus resort to see what it was like. We got there, and
the sent us out to a barge way out on the bay, and we had the lights on and the
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
shore patrol-not the shore patrol, the boat's inspecor (??) lights on,
wouldn't put them lights on. And the Duty Officer says, "leave 'em alone, we'll
take care of them tomorrow." So we're having a good time there. And I didn't
know what was happening, these guys were a little more older than I was, and
they're trying to shoot a Navy(??)
-I forgot to tell you, when I was in the Squantom, bad field experience. We
shared the base at Squantom, the Naval Air Station. I was on the baseball team,
and I caught a bad a taste about China-they called them China sailors, before the
war. They were horrible people. They were drunks. This guy come over, and
they assigned me a locker+clears throat) you may have to tape this over, with
my voice-and they assigned me a locker, and that's supposed to be mine (??).
And he says to me "you ain't got that locker, you got another locker."
I says "why?"
He says, "that was my locker." He says, "'cause that's my liquor locker."
But he got his-what happened--one day he was-he got the FOU. They got
TBMs on the squadron base. And SBDs.
Wilkins: What were those?
ZENI: Those were.. .uh Torpedo Bombers, SBDs were Scouting Bombers, and we
shared the base with the British Navy. I got papers you can read about, and, ah
the British Navy. They were powedul aircraft carriers. Ooohh, talking about
that, that's the greatest experience there, but let me tell you about this guy. He
made the plane go down nose-first, slipped and crashed onto the hanger floor.
And he wasn't on the base anymore.
But, uh, that's when I was a kid, and the greatest experience to me. A carrier
came into the harbor, and they flew the planes. They landed a squadron. And to
me, that was great. The precision they brought the planes in, and that was the first
experience I saw. And to me that was the greatest experience of the day. I was in
awe watching these people. I thought, I gotta be part of that, you know. It really
was, felt great, and that's it. Now how'd I get on that subject?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: You mentioned aircraft carriers, because you were taking about the China
navymen.
ZENI: Oh, sorry yeah. All right, now we'll go to how I came into the squadron. So I
went down to Corpus Christ to see my kid brother. That's were I met my wife
and we got married.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: Yeah. And a funny thing about my kid brother, I hadn't seen him for two
years, and he was in the fire department on the naval air station. So I walk in to
em', a guy, I says, "my kid brother's name is Lino," Lee they called him. They
took me up to where the bunkroom was, and I walked up, ''that's not my brother!"
I couldn't recognize him. (Laughter).
Okay, we stayed there, and-oh getting back to the story, now I know where I
lost my train of thought. Okay, we couldn't turn the lights out. I said, "we'll take
care of 'em later on." Okay, now next morning we assembled in the movie hall,
everybody that was aboard that-
He says, the skipper of the base, I forgot what we called him(??), "by tonight,
none of you people are gonna be on this base. I don't want you." And of course,
it was a hard time. And again, luck always falls in a line with me that everyone
was shippin' all over the country, and I fell-I went to Rodd Field, which was
down the road, naval air station. And, I was the only guy that stayed in Texas,
believe it or not. The rest of em' were shipped to the four comers of the world.
They went to the Pacific, and all other sifter(??). And draft that was on in the
personnel, they filled 'em with them. That's another one, but I stayed there 'ti1 I
got discharged. Okay, I got my orders and I got discharged.
Wilkins: Um, do mind if I ask you a couple questions about what it was like in um-
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: No
Wilkins: But we're gonna go back. When you were in Key West, and in Cuba, um,
what was it like? Like what was the climate like? Was it-
ZENI: Nice, hot.
Wilkins: Nice and hot?
ZENI: Nice, no it was nice, but very humid though.
Wilkins: Right.
ZENI: Cuba was a nice place. I enjoyed my time I spent in Cuba.
Wilkiis: Did you have any-were there any major storms, like were there any
hurricanes?
ZENI: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up. In 1944, that's another incident. A pilot
on the base, his name was Collins. He was from Brooklyn. He says, called me
over, "Zeni," he says. "We going to Floyd Bennett Field, you and I."
Wilkins: Great.
ZEN: I ran over, got my gear, throw it in the back of the aircraft. The Chief comes
over and asks me, he says, "what are you doing?'
I said, "I'm going with Ensign Collins."
He said, "no you're not." He says, "the Skipper has other plans for you I
was up in Skipper's office," he says. "You're going to take a flight of leave-going
on a leave plane with flights going to Banana River." Aaaooooh. Which is,
you know where Banana River is?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Wilkins: No.
ZENI: Where they shoot the shells off-
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Cape Kennedy, that's down there near Banana River. So, I said, "okay."
So Collins said, "what are you gonna do with your gear?'
I says, "take it, I ain't gonna need it." 'Cause I wore my blues, you know
what I mean, the whole dress uniform. I ain't gonna be going anyplace. So we
got in the plane, and we're over Miami, and the winds blowin' and howlin'. They
say the hurricanes coming. And, what happened was, I look around and see that
number twelve. I said "that was Mike Crawford!" He doesn't know where he
was. So I flew with three Marine pilots, I think they were. But they were PV
pilots. They weren't versed in OSS.' That's why they wanted me to go. So we
got there, and that was an experience, I tell ya'. I hurt me a (??). So, he
joined up with us and we landed at Banana River. So they had no mooring, so
that we get people coming up on the apron. So we had to moor out at the buoys in
the bay. So, what happened was, I was out to go down on a float, I had to grab
the buoy.
And what happened was, I heard this splash. I says, "What'd you do?' He
dropped the depth charge. And, I'm sitting there like that holding my head. And
I said, "well, I've got it." But it was set for, I think it was set to go off at a deeper
depth than we were, and that's what saved us from being blown up.
Wilkins: Yeah, (laughter.)
ZENI: I'll never forget that. And so, out of nowhere, my active ended. I stayed in
Corpus until I got discharged. And my active duty was great. I had no problem.
I played baseball. I played with a lot of big-leaguers. And, I wanted to be a big-
- - ' OS2Us, per Mr. Zeni.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
leaguer, but I was too small, as it ended up. When I was in high school, and I was
playing baseball for Boy's High in Brooklyn. And Coach Harry Kane, who
coached Lou Gehrig, he had the scouts from St. Louis Cardinals come in. And
the guy said, "he's a good ballplayer," he said. "But you're too small." That's
when they introduced short stops that were six feet, like they are today. And
Maw Marion was the guy they brought on because he was six foot. That was
institutional.
So, I says to him, "what about Phil Rizzutto? He was small."
And the answer he gave me was, "politics." That's why I never became a big
league ballplayer.
Wilkins: Oh, man.
ZENI: But later on, they kept they guys at five feet six. So, while I was sitting at
home, I was working. I had a horrible job. It was horrible in '45, there weren't
that many jobs around. No, '46, not '45. Eisenhower was in, no Truman was in.
There was no jobs. I had to take a job, a horrible job, making ceramics, so it was
horrible. So, I gotta get some extra income, so I joined the Naval Air Reserve.
And, my wife didn't want me to go active. I like flying, going back into that. So,
I worked with some VS outfits, we were flying torpedo bombers. And it was
great. Some places I was two weeks, I used to go flying to different parts of the
country.
Then I went to work for a place, I got pictures of. I was in the early Space
Program.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: The Discovery Missile, the Vanguard missiles, which was a very disaster the
Navy was involved with. Boy I remember the picture taken. I worked on the
gyroscopes, and the platforms, that would run it. I tested all the gyroscopes, and
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
it was good experience. But what it entailed, I had to go on field trips. And, I had
to drop out of the Reserves. So, I dropped out, I didn't do much until I got-
But then, when it quieted down I went back into the Reserves. So I was First
Class, I made First Class in there, the Reserves. They didn't want to give me it,
because I was out to long. So there was a program they had at that time, the
Navy, where-it was a double-edged sword. It was, if you could take the courses
and pass the test, I would get Chief Petty Officer, E-7. Okay, but they gave me-of
course, with my experience working with the Space Program and missiles, they
gave me a different rating: AQ. It was Guided Missile Man. And, I detested that!
I did that for about four years and I hated every minute of it. There was no flying,
and the people in there I didn't like.
So finally, one day I'm walking across a hangar and I get stopped by this
Captain Law. And he says to me, "what's that stupid thing you're wearing on
your shirt sleeve?" The rating.
I tell him, "AQ."
He says, "what are doing there'?" Well, I explained the story to him. He said,
"we ain't gonna stand for that." He was a Captain. He took me over to the VP
squadron, introduced me to the Skipper. The reason he got to know me, was I
flew with him, the early part of '40s6-when I first went into the VS squadron of
Floyd Bennett Field. And I flew with him a lot. So he took me to the Ensign, it
was Captain-uh, Commander Brass, and he says, "get him to flying status. He's
a radioman. He does more good as a radioman than what he's doing." 'Cause
they really had nothing there on Floyd Bennett to do with that.
Wilkin: Right.
ZENI: Sure enough, he wrote a letter. And, I was Chief then, AQ. And I passed the
test (sound of something hitting table and mike wobbling). I took the gamble and
won. I coulda Seaman over again (laughter). So, they changed my rate to Avian
Mr. Zeni latere corrected this to the '50s.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
Submarine Warfare Technician. What I did, I went with P2Vs and the patrol
squadron and I was Radioman and Jezebel operator.
And so, I had a good time, I flew all over. I had two experiences in there that
I'll never forget. Once we were flying off New Brunswick, Maine, and all of a
sudden, on the God frequency-I don't know if you know what that is.
Wilkins: No, I don't.
ZENI: It blasts like it was somebody sitting next to you. It says, "get out of the area!"
It was the battleships having gunnery practice. We had wondered into that
(laughter). The other time was when we were off of Iceland, and we lost an
engine.
Wilkins: Oh, no.
ZENI: And, I was scared. I thought we were gonna have to bail out, but we got back
to the base. And the other time, we over flew the Azores, and Rota, Spain, and
Naples, and Sigonella, Sicily-that's where all the cases were. And we were
playing games-at that point, the Cold War was at its height, and these Russian
Trawlers, fishing trawlers, really had radar gear. And we played cat and mouse
trying to catch them, (coughs) before they covered- (tape ends, turn to other
side).
Wilkins: This is the continuation of the interview with Mr. Richard Zeni on October 22,
2005 in the library of San Marcos, Texas. And once again, my name is Reagan
Wilkins, and I am the interviewer. (Mr. Zeni coughs) were talking about trawlers.
ZENI: Yeah, that's ah, Russian trawlers. And we caught a lot of them, you know,
before they-and we took pictures. But, the biggest ah thrill I got, was when we
were in Rota, Spain. We took off, and they had a decoy and the regular sub on
through Gibraltar out into the Atlantic, or going into the Mediterranean. So there
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
was a report of stuff in there. And, it was strange because, I couldn't understand
this was, because, I used to go in and get my coded message. But you could-the
Russian submarine could sit out there and listen and hear that you were gonna-then
they knew that you were gonna take off looking for them. So we finally
went off the Canary Islands, the submarines were lucky, they saw them.
It was lots of fun. I got to see Rome. I got to see a lot of good places where I
wanted to see.
Wilkins: What did you do when you caught the Russian trawlers?
ZENI: Well, we just sent a message, or a position report.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: Not a big deal, because I don't know what happened after that. I'm glad you
mentioned that because the biggest scare I got in my life. Its right across the bay
from Cadeza, Spain. That's were Columbus came to the United States-America,
not the United States. So what happened was, I'm in this ferry boat and there was
an American Submarine base right there. And, that's where the submarines were
playing cat ant mouse with the Russian subs. And when this sub, nuclear sub
came up out of the water, I didn't know what was coming up out of the water.
Scared the dickens out of me (laughter). We lost a lot of, no not a lot, a few subs
over in that area too. They never knew what happened to them, probably playing
cat and mouse game and got caught.
Wilkins: Yep.
ZENI: So another thing is, we went to Naples, we landed there. And what happens is
we landed, see this mark up here?
Wilkins: Mh-hm.
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Okay, we landed. We had a tricycle, three gears, and the gear in the fiont, it
broke it, and the Skipper says, "you can't buy that kind of experience."
I said, "who needs to?'(laughter). But that's that. So the people were a little
afiaid because he couldn't maneuver that. You know, that's hard. That same
thing happened to me in Cuba, one time, but the tail wheel wouldn't lock. And
we took off fiom Havana and there's nothing but apartment buildings around the
airfield. And that scared the dickens out of me then too. I always remembered
that.
So, we had to go back, to Rota. The pilot says, "can't you talk these guys into
it?" You know, there weren't going.
So, I says, "I'm going back." I said, "If I didn't think I was safe, I wouldn't be
on it." I got 'em all back on, but I was a little leery about it too, because
something could have happened with the landing gear. 'Cause they fixed it, but
they didn't do a permanent job.
Okay, that brings me back to permanent job. Okay, that reminds me of
another incident. When I was in the Reserves until the end, I retired fiom the
reserves but went to the Ready Reserves. Trying to think of-I got it in here
somewhere. I volunteered for this Southwest Pacific, WESTPAC (sounds of
large notebook being opened and pages being flipped). And we were supposed to
fly supplies to Vietnam, so I volunteered for it. I thought it would be a good deal,
get to go see Japan.
And so, we took OR We took off fiom Floyd Bennett to Oakland to Hawaii.
Hawaii to Wake, and then to Guam. But on the way to Wake to Guam, when we
landed at Guam, we couldn't unfeather the prop. So, I said it was electrical
problem, not mechanical, but they wouldn't believe me. I had a horrible pilot.
He thought he knew everything. So, we were sitting there. I had no duties, so I
didn't care. They were working. They'd pull an engine change and check and all
that stuff, and the still couldn't get it. All they got themselves was dirty.
So, we had got us another P2, from the regular Navy. And I talked to the guy
in there, an electrician was on board. He says, "yeah, you're right." So what I did
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
was, I got a switch. It wasn't an exact switch, fiom the maintenance department
and I saudered it in, and it worked. But we flew with that switch. And I don't
know how long it stayed there, but I reported it. It was, ah, told it to Skipper.
But we flew into there, Guam and to-oh what's the name of that place? A
beautiful place in Philippines, right outside there. They closed it down now, they
had that volcano.. .(sounds as Mr. Zeni searches through his book). Oh well, I'll
email you this stuff, but I don't remember.7 There, we were behind schedule. So,
we were supposed to go to Nang. We were carrying some important pieces of
paper or whatever it was, materials. And when we landed in Hawaii, in the whole
place, we had to park waaayyy off the field so I don't know what it was. To this
day, I have no idea what it is. So we unloaded, but that's what I said, it was in the
airspace around there. When we were in Oahu(??), trying to see anyone brought
back from Vietnam. We took people from, I'm trying to think of the name of that
base. I can't think of it, I'll think of later. I got pictures. Ah, well, we took them
up to Atsugi, Japan. And, that was a nice place, I enjoyed that. I got to spend
three days in Tokyo, it was real nice. And Yokahama. What scared me is it's
trains were so crowded and packed, its high speed trains.
Wilkins: Oh, yeah.
ZENI: And I'm looking over-short as I am, I was looking over the shoulder of
everybody. I could see these Japanese kids looking at me, who's that white man?
You know, different colored skin. But we had a good time. So we flew back to
Midway, which was an experience I enjoyed. But what had happened was, I
couldn't sleep. I can never sleep on an airplane, even today when I go on a flight,
'cause I don't know what's happening. I took over all the radio watch, all the way
to Midway to back to Oahu. When I got to Oahu, the only thing I saw was the
Punch Bowl. That's where all big (??) are buried. So this guy says, "we'll
go out tonight, you coming?"
Mr. Zeni later named the island as Subic Bay
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
I says, "yeah, let me take some snooze, shut eye, I didn't sleep." They tried to
wake me up. They couldn't wake me. I woke up, I went out to Camp Perry. I
went to the nightclub and I had something to eat. But, they took off, and I paid
for the car, my part of it. But it was fun. Then we went back home.
I had a lot of good times in the Reserves, because I just got to see-its not like
the shipboard, that they just want to cruise, and have you out to sea and back.
Maybe, they got to go to port of call, maybe. But, I got to see a lot of places
around the world. So I enjoyed it. But my wife gave me a hard time. She goes-it
was a weekend-she says, "everybody's out barbecuing and you're out-" But
I felt good about it because I felt that I was doing something that-you know it
was early in the morning, I had to drive sixty miles from Long Island, where I
lived, to Floyd Bennett. But I thought it was worth it. And I was sitting up in that
cold airplane and we were looking Russian trawlers. I thought that was
contributing.
The funny part about the Reserves, my brothers were in there. They'd both
gone in there. My older brother got called up during the Korean War. I was in
there too. I was the only one in the Active Reserve. They weren't in the active,
but they were in the inactive. They told my kid brother, wait until he was called.
They never called him. My brother they called, but he got out because he a back
problem. So, but I mean, they were inactive and they got called (laughter). But
the people they had called, the found out-I shouldn't say this, about how
horrible the Reserve Program was-they weren't actually ready. And most of
'em got-when we had the Cuban crisis, they went to outlying bases near there
and all they did was go regular. They had the opportunity to go regular. But my
wife didn't want any part of that. But I'm glad I did it, you know why? Because
I got all the benefits today. I wouldn't have nothing. I wouldn't have pension, no
medical, nothing. So I enjoyed it.
So that's it, I got pictures here, I want you to look through these things and see
what you want.
Wilkins: Okay, but-
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Ah, more questions.
Wilkins: Yeah, lets see. Um, you've answered a lot of them just through talking,
(laughs) so that's really good. Um, so when did you finally retire?
ZENI: Well, you don't retire until your 60 years old, so that would be 20-40-60, it
'84. What you did is went to the Ready Reserves . . . (Mr. Zeni spends a few
minutes looking for retirement paperwork in his book) . . . oh here's pictures from
when I was on TV.
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Here's the story (loud movement as microphone is hit, continues flipping
through book).
Wilkins: What were you on television for?
ZENI: Read it, right there, this is where I got my rating in AQ, Guided Missile Man.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, so that was the NASA Missile, working for the Space Program.
ZENI: Yeah, that's what I was telling you. That shows you all things in there. I told
you about the Gyro program. There's a table testing them, a couple degrees
instrument, discovery missile, that's the whole thing. I played softball there to . . ..
(continues to look for retirement paperwork periodically pointing out pictures) . . .
here it is, this is when I retired, see. Oh, I forgot to mention this, (long pause),
Naval Reserve Retired List, see that's where I got transferred to. That was in, ah,
'69, I think it was. That's what you want.
W: Oh, okay, this is a Retired List?
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
ZENI: Yeah, here's where I retired the first time, well I call it the first time (laughs).
But this is explaining about the Floyd Bennet Field. They wanted me to come up
and take my picture. I didn't want to go. I didn't feel right, but I could have been
in that picture. Here it goes on and tells you I was an ASW Technician.
Now when I was a kid, I used to go to Floyd Bennett. That's one thing, how I
got introduced to Naval Air. I should have had that on there.
W: Oh, okay.
ZENI: At that time, they had the longest runway in the world. When I was out there,
seeing and reading is gonna take a lot of time. Here's what I was wanted to tell.
This is what I got for that flight to Japan.
Wilkins: (Reading) the Rear Admiral uh-
ZENI: The Richard Fowler Award.
Wilkins: Richard Fowler Award. Oh, okay. You got that for-
ZENI: Read it, WESTPAC.
Wilkins: (Reading) Whereas, while serving as a member of the Navy-Marine air
Reserve Team, and maintaining your readiness to serve your country upon instant
call, and whereas you volunteered as a Transport Flight crew member in support
of the United States Naval Air Reserve's WESTPAC operations to South Viet
Nam, and whereas the record of your volunteer service to the Unites States is in
the highest tradition of the United States Navy and the Naval Air Reserve (ends
reading). Oh, okay, so then you got this for your South Vietnam.
ZENI: Yeah.
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Wilkins: But you didn't, they didn't give you the Vietnam Service Medal.
ZENI: No, I never got it. That's what I'm trying to do.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, I see, that's neat.
ZENI: I want to find out how to do it though. I don't want to go through
Congressman, because you know what happens with that, they won't get their
picture in the paper.
Wilkins: Yeah, that's what it takes. Um, so going back to-
ZENI: You said, where I went. That's the Reserve, and I got (more flipping through
the book) and I got the Ready Reserve at that point time. In fact, I got all, I didn't
bring it with me, but I still haven the in case of - (??) what squadrons you
want (microphone hit). They gave you the, you know, you got a piece of paper:
in case of war breaks out this-
Wilkins: Oh, okay, you'll go to here.
ZENI: This is your assignment. That was strange. This is transfer to the Retired
Reserves. That was '69. See, I went to Retired Reserves. And I retired in '84 . . .
(looks through the book some more).
Wilkins: Did you miss it, when you were finally-when all was said and done?
ZENI: No, not really. No. (??). Well, I got retired really here, and I started
going to the Commissary out here, and Randolph and all that. I used to got to the
one over there in Austin, Bergstrom. There I missed it, because I looked around
and I saw service people, how different (bang on table) they were than the civilian
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people. How nicer they were. The atmosphere was-I felt more at home there,
than- (??).
Wilkins: Um, when you did retire, what was your rank? You were a Chief Petty
Officer?
ZENI: Chief Petty Officer. They didn't have E-8, and E-9s then. I could have been a
Warrant Officer, but I retired instead (interviewer's laughter). 'Cause my wife
was on my back, so I figured I had enough of that . . . (Here, Mr. Zeni begins
going through his personal military history book, pointing out pictures.) . . .
Wilkins: So you mentioned you went to the school for the Aerial Gunnery. Did you
ever actually use that?
ZENI: Oh, yeah, but I mean. I was an Aerial Gunner, but I never used--oh that
reminds me of another incident. What had happened was, Princeton-I think it
was Princeton Carrier that blew up during the latter part of World War 11, you can
tape this if you want. Are you taping yet?
Willcins: Yes
ZENI: Youare?
Wilkins: Yes.
ZEN: I didn't know it was taping.
Wilkins: Oh, I'm sorry.
ZENI: That's all right. When this carrier was being-it had to be towed back to the
United States. It came through the Panama Canal, and I was flying near the
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Yucatan Peninsula and the code came in to us. That's where Semaphore came in
handy. And, oh, I gotta tell you another incident beside that. And the submarine
was hauling it out to New York, the Princeton. It was a very damaged carrier.
And this guy in the submarine come out with this blinking light, from the sub
(laughter). I'll never forget that. And the S ema p h o r ~ ht,h ere was one day we
went out. This was when we were at Neuvitas. That's the name of the base I was
trying to think of: Neuvitas. And, we went out and we had to deliver messages
that a submarine was in the area. So we took off. A couple guys dropped before
me, and to no avail. This is dropped sandbags with messages inside from the
airplanes (interviewer laughter, unintelligible few words). So I went, and we're
flying, we went over the ship and I dropped it and it was out there, and they let it
go over the side. I was mad. Then on the radio I heard the ship was calling
Miami, described our airplane. We were harassing them (laughter). And, so the
pilot got irritated, aggravated and he got on the mike and he says "we're not
harassing you! We're telling you to turn because there's a sub in your area!"
(laughter). And he broke radio-silence, it was bad. But he was p. o'd at the ship
'cause they were telling it like we were harassing them-
Wilkins: Yeah, I can (laughter)-
ZENI: And he was mad about that (laugher). That's a funny one for you. The more I
go on, the more I can think of these things. (Begins flipping through book.)
Wilkins: Um, I was gonna-
ZENI: Go ahead, give your question.
Wilkins: So, you used your education benefits that you got fiom the military?
ZENI: No.
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Wilkins: No?
ZENI: No. Not a day. Because, I'll tell you the truth: I thought I was too stupid to
go to college.
Wilkins: Really?
ZENI: Really. And I had a great job. Why did I need college? I was making good
money in the space program. I (??). I did go one time. It was a rainy day.
I went to a university on Long Island, and I leaned over to my wife and said, lets
go home. That's the closest I came to it. But when I came down here, and I
actually retired-my wife, like I told you, she came from Corpus. And her sister
lives here in Sequin, right nearby.
I worked for Butler. I helped start that plant, down here. Sometimes you go
to Austin, you'll see it on the other side. Okay, so, they needed personnel to start
this company. They came down from Kansas City, Butler Manufacturing. And, I
was one of six guys that started there. But, I stayed on, I only worked there ten
years. They had a larger refinery plant. I got 23,000$, in stocks. That's not too
bad. But they offered to pay for the college. And that's why I went back, and I
got my regular degree in Occupational Education, and a Master's in Personal
Interdisciplinary Sciences, because they paid for them. The only thing it cost me
was for the books.
Wilkins: That's nice.
ZENI: But, my GI plan had run out by that time.
Wilkins: What are some of the- like, are there any differences that you notice in the
military service when you first joined and military service now?
ZENI: Yeah, lots.
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Wilkins: What are some of the main ones that you notice?
ZEN: When you went into World War 11, during the quad (??), you signed your life
away. You were in the Rocks and Shoals Navy. Old timers will call it the Rocks
and Shoals Navy. But you signed away your identity. You didn't know it, but
you didn't write to a councilman. You didn't complain. You couldn't complain
to nobody. And the Chief said, you couldn't do anything. You couldn't write
your councilman or anything. They had your body locked in. They had no recall.
And it was more disciplined. In World War 11, it was more disciplined than
people in Vietnam and Korea. As far as Korea, Harry Truman changed all that
when he pulled in the Code of Military Justice. He brought that in, he said "boys,
you can write to your Congressman." But then, you belonged to the Navy. You
had no identity. And it was a hard life, really, because Chief said jump, you
jump. And there's nothing you could do about it.
Wilkins: Wow.
ZENI: And, a stupid kid, I was. When I got out of Raters school, I said "oh boy! No
more guard duty."
And the Chief laughed at me. He says, "you don't know what you're getting
into." But generally the people were more hardened up. I found that when I was
in the Reserve, that the people in the Rocks and Shoals Navy didn't like the
people that were enlisted in the Reserves, because they didn't have to go
through-you know, the Chief in the Rocks and Shoals was king. What he said
went. But that didn't hold true for the Reserves. Whereas they could transfer or
quit. And yo-yo things like-I'm gonna turn it off for a minute and talk to
something else. (Tape stops and restarts)
Wilkins: Um, okay, so, like, now do you belong to any of the Navy organizations or
Veteran's organizations or anything like that?
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ZENI: No. I never believed in the VFW or American Legion. I did join a few of
them, but I was disenchanted. But, when I was a kid, I was growing up, the
American Legion were a bunch of drunks throwing paper bags out the window on
people and getting drunk (laughter). That's what I remember. No, I don't think
they really-they probably do a good job. I didn't want any part of it.
Wilkins: I think I've got most of my questions answered, either whether-most of them
you answered. Just by talking you got most of my questions.
ZENI: Well, good, I'm glad.
Wilkins: Is there anything else that you wanted?
ZENI: No, I wanted you to glance through these things. . . (Here, Mr. Zeni begins
going through his personal military history book, pointing out pictures and
pamphlets from his naval career.) . . . (looking at information from his Rating
School) that reminds me, you had take care of, teach a class before you got out.
Wilkins: Oh, that makes sense.
ZENI: Yeah, so, I got a bunch of Marines. I also had Eddie Rickenbacker, Jr. in my
class.
Wilkins: Who? I'm sorry.
ZENI: You don't know who Eddie Rickenbacker, Jr.-Do you no Eddie
Rickenbacker? He was a World War I Army Air Corps Ace.
Wilkins: Oh, okay, yes. I have, I remember reading about him now.
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ZENI: Well, his son was in there. Now I lost my train--Oh I had the Marines. I says,
"oh boy, I'm gonna have it easy. You boys were the sharp shooters. You're
wearing all of those medals." And they were horrible (laughs). They couldn't hit
the side of a barn. I was so disappointed. I said, "I thought you guys-whats all
those sharp shooter medals you got?" I hated Marines, because when I was going
to Radio School in Memphis, I was walking down the street in Memphis. Beetle
Street, I think it was. I see this Marine breaking the antenna on this girl's car. I
said, "why are you doing that for?' And she was ignoring him. I got in a fist
fight over it. And the girl told the shore patrol about it. Shore patrol took the
Marine with me then (laughter).
Then, later on, there was another incident with the Marines. Oh, yeah, that's
when I was at Squantom. You better put this down on there. When I was at
Squantom, I used to be able to go to New York on my weekends, as long as I'd do
shore patrol duty on Friday nights.
Wilkins: Oh, okay.
ZENI: So, I used to go do shore patrol, then I'd get off shift, go down to South
Station, get on a train, and come to New York for the whole weekend. And what
happened was, it was St. Patty's day. That's an Irish thing. Bostoners are all
Irish. So, the Marines were up there and an English ship come in. so the Marines
go-I won't go there, I'm jumping ahead. I'm walking-what I did, was that
night I went to the movies, checked the movie out, walked around town. Then,
I'm talking to a cop. Quincy Mass is the place. I'm talking to the cop and this
woman says "There he is, when you want him run down there(??)"
I said, "what's she talking about?" Are you taping this?
Wilkins: Yes.
ZENI: Oh, okay (laughter). So I says, "what's she taking about?"
He says, "where were you about an hour ago?
I says, "in the movie. Check it out."
MS 315. Veterans History Project Zeni
"That's a good thing," he said. "They'd a killed you." He said, "the Marines
and the English Navy went at it. And the Marines were swinging their belts in the
air." (laughter). He says, "you were lucky" that I didn't go there.
I don't know, the more I talk to you, the more I get thinking about all these
experiences. Another funny experience I had was: you've ever heard of Ensign
Gay? Last pilot to VT8, Torpedo Squadron Eight, they went off of Midway and
the whole Squadron got wiped out, but he won the war and watched the carriers
being sunk (??)
Wilkins: Oh.
ZENI: Ensign Gay is his name, he just died a little while ago. Boy, I was in
Jacksonville, and Ensign Gay was gonna fly an airplane. And I got my (banging
on table, word unintelligible) approved. I'm gonna fly with a hero. I got out-it
was starting to rain, so Chief says "everybody man the planes." So I ran out and
where do I grab the rain, and I pulled the ripcord (laughter). Oh, the parachute
opened up, no flight. So the Chief says, "you're lucky. " He says, "if you were
attached to this squadron," he'd a hurt me.
Another time, was when I went out on patrol. What we had to do, we had old
time radios, and we had to change the coils for different frequencies. And what
happened was, you were supposed to pick the right coils out. So, I took off, and I
didn't have the right coils. Boy, did I b. s. my way out of that one. I had to do a
lot of work though. Instead of (tapping on table) keying Key West, I had to send
all my messages through Mobile, Alabama (laughter). We were late back to Key
West. That was the only way I could do it. I told them that we were in a dead
zone, gave them some b. s. story like that, but I screwed up.
That time it was at the Devil's Triangle. The Bahamas is what I was trying to
think of earlier. So, that Bermuda Triangle, I had three incidents in there. That's
one of them. And, to me, there is no such thing. You know how they make out of
it? They're not in the Triangle, they're just screw-ups that people, like the
torpedo bombers that took off and then found themselves-- and then they made a
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big story about it. We're flying back fiom Bermuda. So, the guy says--I set all
the frequencies up for Jacksonville, Florida, Norfolk and Carswell, or Kennedy-
I think it was either one. So the pilot says to the other pilot, " I got vertigo,"
didn't know up or down.
So, he goes, "let me take over," and their fighting. So, the pilot says to me,
"get me Idlewild." So, I'm setting up the fieaking thing for him, and I unlocked
the thing. So, he keyed it and the other guy grabbed it. And I don't know how he
did it, and he erased all my frequencies. 'Cause I had them locked. So I had to
reset them while they were arguing up there. I could hear it through the
headphones. And finally we got it, and we landed. And he coulda gave up the
plane, he just didn't want to give up control (??).
Another thing that was great about being in the Reserves, I was a qualified
Radioman. So anybody wanted to go on a liquor run, you know to duty free
ports. I'd just call orders through the mike (laughter). And they were willing to
buy me the same liquor (speaker fades away, unintelligible). That reminds me of
another story. We landed in Bermuda one time, and we had came in from-what's
the name of that place right of Rosy Roads? Where the ( ??)
Wilkins: Oh, I don't know
ZENI: I can't think of the name of it right now. Its one of the American owned
islands. So, the Skipper was a hard nose. He says to-and low and behold(??) he
went and took all the liquor out and lined it up on the apron, and he says-he
came to one and he said "who owns this?'And the Chief didn't want to answer
up. "Oh, it don't belong to nobody?" He called one of the guys on the line and
says, "this don't to anybody, you guys can have it" (laughter). But he was very
strict, he just, they reached a limit. But, I wasn't a drinker, so I said, I had got six
bottles for somebody else. Course, I got caught with a lot of things. And it paid
off a lot, you know.
One day we took off for Bermuda and they were socked in, so we had to run
up into El Paso . . . (Mr. Zeni has a question about the taping and if this will be
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shown to the teacher) . . . .So we went to El Paso. So what happened was, we
waited until the guards changed every eight hours, and we would get and extra
quart. (Laughing) we were allowed six bottles, and we'd get six more. But, I
didn't drink then, but the other guys did. Another time we went to Vegas, had a
good time.
That's what I'm telling you, the Reserves is a great experience. I worked
hard. One guy told me, when I made Chief Petty Officer-I like working on
airplanes. And, one day the skipper see me, he called me down. I was in my
dungarees with my Chiefs hat on. He says, "what are you doin'?"
I says, "I'm helping the guys out."
He says, "there's a lot of guys that would like to be wearing your hat. Do you
wanna give it to them?'Yeah, you wasn't supposed to do it, with being a Chief.
But, it was a good thing. I had a good experience. That's one of the things that I
remember on it.
Another time I passed-another thing, I coulda killed the guy. I was going for
Chief, way before I got it. I took the written test, and I passed everything. So I
had a flight I wanted to make. So I told the instructor of the school-I knew him
from way back-and I said, "you know I can take code, I ain't gonna take the
code test." He flunked me. And they flew me, I threw it out because I wouldn't
tell them about it. I ended up having to take the whole test again, because he
didn't want me to be Chief. There was a lot of that, you know. People that you
met that I didn't care for. But, not that they were good.
The submarine people never liked us either. 'Cause we madeif you
dropped, it wasn't a real depth charge, but if you dropped it from the plane, they'd
think you had. It would send a shock through the hull.
One time, there was a guy down there, and I'm sending a message. And I
couldn't get the frequency in right. I would always get--oh, that's one of the
reasons I didn't want to fly any more: 'cause my hearing started to go. And what
I had to do, is I'd hear dit- dit- dit- dit- dit- dit and all the dits and dots, I had to
detune it and It'd go boom- boom- boom- boom- boom, and I could make it out. I
tried failing the swimming test (??). They wouldn't let me. I got turned in,
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